I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £5,467,047 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1946, for the Army and the Army Reserve (including certain Grants-in-Aid) under the Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Acts, and for certain administrative Expenses in connection therewith; for the Expenses of the Office of the Minister for the Coordination of Defensive Measures; for Expenses in connection with the trial and detention of certain persons (No. 28 of 1939, No. 1 of 1940 and No. 16 of 1940, etc.); for certain Expenses under the Offences against the State Acts, 1939 and 1940 (No. 13 of 1939 and No. 2 of 1940) and the Air-raid Precautions Act, 1939 (No. 21 of 1939); for Reserve Medical Supplies for Civilian Hospitals; for certain Expenses of the Local Defence Force (including Grants-in-Aid) (No 28 of 1939); for Expenses in connection with the issue of Medals commemorating the 1916 Rising, etc.; for certain Expenses in connection with Blood Transfusion; for a Grant to the Irish Red Cross Society; and for Expenses in connection with the Production of certain Chemicals for Sale.
When last November the Estimate for the Army Vote for the financial year 1945-46 was being prepared, it did not seem unlikely that the emergency, so far as the Army was concerned, would last another year, and, accordingly, the Estimate was compiled and printed in the form with which Deputies have become familiar for the past four years. All the expenditure and receipts were shown under two broad sub-heads without any attempt to give details. The debit or expense sub-head for £8,411,942 provided for:— (1) An Army strength based on war establishments; (2) Pay, stores, supplies and equipment for such a force; (3) Grants, stores, supplies and equipment for the L.D.F.; (4) Stores and equipment with grants to local authorities for the A.R.P. service; (5) The expenses incurred in connection with the censorship.
Now, however, with the cessation of hostilities in Europe, it has been decided to recast the Estimate, to show expenditure under the normal pre-emergency subheads of the Army Vote, and, accordingly, a revised Estimate within the original gross total of £8,411,942 has been presented to the House.
The main basis of the revised Estimate is the average strength of the Army over the financial year 1945-46. That basis is not any particular establishment, but rather the average number of all ranks which will have to be paid and maintained during the year. Starting with the actual strength of the Army on 1st April, 1945, the Estimate proceeds on the basis of a gradual reduction in Army strengths until the figure of 12,500 is reached at the end of March, 1946. This gives an average of 22,249 all ranks over the year, consisting of:—
|
1,963 |
Officers and Chaplains |
|
5,315 |
Non-Commissioned Officers |
|
14,971 |
Privates |
|
——— |
|
|
22,249 |
|
|
——— |
To this number must, however, be added:—
|
Construction Corps |
1,770 All Ranks |
|
Nurses |
157 |
|
Cadets |
30 |
|
–—— |
|
|
1,957 |
making a total average strength of 24,206 All Ranks, Grades and Services.
The primary charge on the Army Vote is the pay and maintenance of that force of 24,206, and that charge, distributed as it is over several sub-heads, amounts to the sum of £5,135,510, or 61.05 per cent. of the total Vote. Here are some of the details:—
|
Pay (Subheads A, D, E, P.2, S.2, W, X3) |
£2,894,807 |
|
Allowances and Services in Cash (Subheads B, G, H, K, M) |
£1,301,411 |
|
Other Services in Kind (Subheads I, K, M, X2, X3) |
£939,292 |
|
Total |
£5,135,510 |
In addition to military personnel proper, the Department employs quite a large body of civilians. Some of these are civil servants, permanent and temporary, employed at Headquarters and in the Commands, others are various types of tradesmen engaged on maintenance and other work, while still others are civilians attached to Units for various purposes. In all, the Department controls about 2,300 civilians and their salaries, wages, and allowances amount to the sum of £514,132 or 6.10 per cent. of the Vote.
The next charge on the Vote in order of importance is that for Stores. Stores held by the Army are of two distinct types according to whether they are primarily intended for warlike purposes, or are of an ordinary nature. Ordinary stores, for instance, include medicines, drugs, instruments, mechanical transport, petrol, oils, cooking equipment and engineer stores, barrack services, etc. The cost of such ordinary stores borne on this Vote is £580,505 or 6.9 per cent. of the total Vote.
Expenditure on warlike stores at £133,040 absorbs only 1.58 per cent. of the present Estimate. The reason for this is that owing to the end of the war in Europe, it has been deemed advisable to cancel large indents for warlike stores, and to await new developments in such stores. Much of the money, therefore, provided for warlike stores in the original Estimate has been transferred in the revised Estimate to meet commitments in regard to gratuities. The amount of £133,040 will be found under Subheads O, P, P.2, Q, and X.3.
Incidental expenses and miscellaneous minor services borne on the Army Vote are many and varied. The expenses proper to the Army consist of such items as the maintenance and hire of land, compensation in cases of motor accidents, contributions to welfare funds to provide better dining amenities for soldiers; telegrams, telephones, advertisements and funeral expenses, etc. These may be said to be proper to the Army and to be incidental to its normal activities. But, in addition to these expenses, there are a number of miscellaneous services borne by the Vote which are not directly attributable to the Army normally. These services include assistance to Civil Aviation, the expenses of the National Blood Transfusion Council, and a grant-in-aid to the Irish Red Cross Society to cover a percentage of the cost of freight of certain medical stores donated by the American Red Cross Society. The total cost of the incidental expenses and the minor miscellaneous services is £122,875 or 1.46 per cent. of the Vote. The incidental expenses proper may be said to cost £94,858 and the miscellaneous minor services £28,017.
So far I have dealt with the Army proper, and there now remains the Army Reserve, the Local Defence Force and the Air Raid Precautions Service. As regards the Reserve—that is, Class A and B and the Volunteer Force Reserve— we are only allowing in the present Estimate for the payment of the normal annual grants to those officers and men who have already been transferred to the Reserve or who may be transferred thereto during the year. The amount involved is £12,310. Provision is also made in the Estimate for the maintenance of the Local Defence Force at a cost of £256,435 or 3.05 per cent. of the Vote. The provision includes Grants-in-Aid to unit funds at £83,000; subsistence and training allowances at £142,735; and other expenses at £30,700. Here it is to be noted that the form which both the Reserve and the Local Defence Force will take in the post-emergency period is still undecided but is under active consideration.
As Deputies are already aware, it has been decided to retain the Air Raid Precautions Service, and the cost of the service in the present year is £93,885. The most of this sum, actually about £50,000, represents outstanding liabilities in respect of grants to local authorities, essential undertakers, factory owners, etc., and another £25,000 will be absorbed in the removal of shelters. This brings me to the last item, the Emergency Gratuities and Re-enlistment Bounties provided for under the new Sub-head A. (4). The three problems at present confronting the Army, the strength of the post-emergency Army, the process of demobilisation, and the resettlement of discharged officers and men, are dealt with in the White Paper, so that it only remains for me to indicate their general outlines.
The problem of the post-emergency Regular Army has been given the most intensive study by the General Staff, and though details have yet to be hammered out, the general plan of an army at least in the immediate future of about two and a half times the size of the pre-emergency Army has been approved. To reduce the Army more at this stage would not, it is considered, be wise national policy. Now many of the long-service permanent officers are due for retirement on one ground or another at the end of the emergency so that it is estimated that there will have to be recruited about 600 officers to complete the provisional post-emergency establishment. As regards other ranks, the position is similar. About 2,000 are due for discharge or transfer to the Reserve and it is estimated that it will be necessary to recruit about 6,000 other ranks to complete the provisional establishments.
A large number of patriotic young men came forward during the emergency to fill the gaps in our ranks. We are hoping that a selected number of these young soldiers will be induced to take up the Army as a career. The selection will be made according to prescribed standards of age, height, and physical fitness with, in the case of officers, an interview by a board of military officers. To the other ranks thus selected, we shall offer the following inducements to remain in the Army:—(1) Payment of the appropriate emergency gratuities; (2) pre-demobilisation leave with pay and allowances according to length of service; (3) special re-enlistment leave with pay and allowances and free travelling warrants; (4) special re-enlistment bounties varying, according to rank, from £10 in the case of a private, to £18 in that of a sergeant-major; (5) re-enlistment as far as possible in existing rank, temporary ranks being made substantive; (6) service during the emergency to count for any pension or gratuity payable under the Defence Forces (Pensions) Schemes.
To the officers selected as suitable, we are offering: (1) Confirmation, if possible, in existing ranks, or if not possible, in a lower rank but at the highest scale of pay appropriate to that rank. (2) Service during the emergency to count for pension under the Defence Forces (Pensions) Schemes.
I suggest that these inducements are generous, and it is hoped they will have the desired effect of attracting suitable men to take up the Army as a definite occupation. As soon as the regulations dealing with the recruitment of officers and other ranks for the post-emergency Army have been promulgated, the applications for commissions or re-enlistment will be dealt with immediately. This will take some little time, after which the process of demobilising the remainder—about 20,000 all ranks—will commence. This process will be carried out in stages and by categories. It is not intended that the rate of demobilisation should exceed an average of about 2,000 a month, so that, allowing for the recruitment for the regular Army, the whole process will be extended over a period of 13 or 14 months. There is, therefore, no intention whatsoever of throwing a large body of men at any one time on the labour market. Moreover, the demobilisation will be effected by priorities, as follows:—
1. Men with employment or desiring to resume their studies will be the first to be released.
2. Men who desire to be released from Army service, whether they have or have not employment, will be released in a second class.
3. Single men who, having completed their engagements, are eligible for pensions, will constitute a third class.
4. Married men similarly circumstanced will form a fourth class.
5. Men willing to serve but unsuitable for retention in the Army will be the last to be demobilised.
The demobilisation of the third, fourth and fifth categories will be the subject of constant discussions with the Department of Industry and Commerce and, during the first year of demobilisation, no soldier will be forced to take his discharge unless he is unsuitable for retention or that no vacancy exists for him in the establishment.
This brings us to the third problem —what plans have been made for the resettlement in civilian life of men who desire to leave the Army or who, eventually, will be found to be surplus to requirements? The plans may be summarised thus:—
1. The payments of gratuities to all persons with, at least, one year's service during the emergency.
2. The granting of special marks for Army service and of concessions regarding age limits to members of the forces who qualify as candidates for professional, technical or similar posts in the Civil Service or in the employment of local authorities.
3. Special limited examinations for posts in the Civil Service as junior executive or clerical officers.
In addition to the gratuity to which an officer or a soldier may be entitled, he will be also entitled to pre-demobilisation leave, with full pay and allowances. If he has served between one and a half and two and a half years he will get 14 days' leave and 21 days if his service is two and a half years or more. Gratuity coupled with pre-demobilisation leave, therefore, means in effect that if a man has served the 72 periods, he will have nearly eight months on pay and allowances to make up his mind about the future and to see what he will be able to do. Moreover, we are taking special precautions to see that the gratuity given is spent to the best advantage. The gratuity will not be paid direct but, in the case of soldiers, will be lodged to their credit in a post office deposit account and, in the case of officers, either to a private bank account or to a post office account. Again, in regard to soldiers, that portion of the gratuity which is made up of marriage allowance will be paid not to the soldier but to the soldier's wife, and it will be paid in weekly instalments, equalling the old marriage allowance, until that portion of the gratuity has been exhausted. We are taking these precautions in the interests of the soldiers and not for administrative or any other convenience. We know too well that many soldiers would not prepare for the proverbial rainy day if the money were given direct into their hands and we are, therefore, adopting these special precautions to protect the soldiers and their families.
The second plan for re-settlement consists in the granting of concessions to discharged personnel who qualify as candidates for professional, technical or similar posts in the Civil Service or with local authorities. Subject to certain over-riding maxima, such qualified candidates will be credited with extra marks for each year of service and, in respect of age, again subject to certain over-riding maxima, such candidates will be allowed to deduct from their age their period of aggregate Army service during the emergency up to a limit of six years. These concessions will secure that candidates for professional, technical or similar posts in the Civil Service or with local authorities will not, in relation to their civilian colleagues, be at a disadvantage when competing with them for public appointments.
The second plan, obviously, only concerns those men who leave the Army with professional or technical qualifications, such as engineers and doctors, but the third relates to those young men who responded to the Government's call and went direct from school into the Army. Many of these patriotic young men went straight into the Army after obtaining the intermediate, leaving or primary certificates. It is for these mainly that the third plan of limited examinations for posts as junior executive and clerical officers in the Civil Service has been designed. That, however, does not mean that such certificates will be a necessary condition for such candidates, because the examinations will be open to all ex-officers and soldiers, and the candidates best qualified will receive the posts. The number of such limited competitions to be held will, naturally, depend on post-emergency conditions, including the rate of demobilisation, but the age limits will be fixed so as to give full opportunity to compete to ex-members of the forces.
The plans just described will, it must be admitted, create employment for only a small fraction of those to be demobilised and, consequently, a very large proportion will have to seek a livelihood in the ordinary industrial and commercial markets. The Government, in its plans, has shown its goodwill to the men who have served their country so faithfully and so well, and it will, of course, do all in its power by its post-emergency plans to stimulate a demand for labour.
The Government's good will is manifest and it is now for the trade unions and employers to show it in the same way. Take, for instance, the case of men who have been receiving additional pay in the Army in respect of qualifications as tradesmen. This pay is not granted unless the men have passed various trade tests. Many of those to be demobilised have acquired their proficiency from training under skilled craftsmen, developed by special technical courses, and, as a result, they have become fully qualified tradesmen, no less skilled than many an apprentice trained wholly in civil life. These men, on demobilisation, will not be able to follow their occupations unless they are admitted as members of the appropriate union, and I would, therefore, most earnestly appeal to the unions to give sympathetic, practical consideration to the claims on behalf of those men which have already been put forward by the Department of Industry and Commerce. The unions may fear that the admission of such men may tend to lower the standard of qualification for membership but I am assured that their training has been so intensive that there is little fear of any such a thing happening. Already, at least one union has agreed to admit these men, and I trust the good example will be gradually followed.
This brings me to the function of employers in helping demobilised men to resettle in civilian life, and, first, to the position of men who left their employment to answer their country's call. Under the Defence Forces Acts, such men are, so far as is reasonably practicable, entitled to their former employment on demobilisation, and I want employers to interpret the phrase "reasonably practicable" in the widest possible manner so as not to leave men out of work one hour more than is necessary. These will on demobilisation be fully instructed as to their rights of reinstatement. I shall not, however, as Minister for Defence, hesitate to intervene as a matter of public policy in any case where there exists what is considered to be a definite injustice done to the ex-soldier. But I do not want to rely on statutory rights. I want matters put on a higher plane. Those men have deserved well of their country, and I want employers to show their appreciation of that fact by regarding it as a public as well as a statutory duty to do all in their power to reinstate their former employees in the occupations they left in order to respond to the nation's call. I have had a number of favourable replies to the letter that I personally addressed to employers throughout the country.
But there will be still a residue—a residue of men who have no professional, technical or trades qualifications —of men who will not be absorbed by the civil service or by local authorities —of men who have no former employment to go back to—of men who are ineligible for or unwilling to be retained in Army Service. Their re-settlement in civil life is a special problem in itself. It is the same problem as that of young men leaving school with high hopes and willing hands but without any definite prospect of employment. Their absorption in gainful employment is dependent on economic conditions over which we have little control. As far as we have that control the Government will use it to the fullest by creating conditions which will stimulate the demand for labour. In so far as those demands exist or will be created, I appeal to employers to give preference to the men who have served in the Forces. It is their duty to do so because as a nation we are indebted to those men, and it is to their benefit to do so because their fitness, training, discipline, and adaptability should prove an asset to any employer.
If employers want—as I hope they will want—ex-members of the Forces, then my own Department and that of the Minister for Industry and Commerce will co-operate to the fullest extent in making available particulars of such men to employers and in getting the men required into contact with them. In order to give such men every chance to tide over any period of unemployment we are taking steps to provide that all demobilised N.C.O.s and men will be credited with a contribution under the Unemployment Insurance Acts in respect of each week or portion of a week of full time service during the emergency. We are doing this although in the normal course soldiers are not credited with Unemployment Insurance during their service.
As far as the present Estimate is concerned, it provides £700,000 for deferred pay, £1,488,250 for gratuities and £75,000 for re-enlistment bounties. It is estimated that the total cost of the resettlement plans will be about £4,000,000—gratuities absorbing about £2,500,000, deferred credits £800,000 and unemployment benefit £270,000. I suggest that this provision is as generous as can be made within the narrow limits of the State's financial resources.
I have already said that the post-emergency regular Army will be about two and a half times the size of the pre-emergency Army. That figure does not, of course, include reserves. The old reserves on which we depended to reinforce the regular Army and to serve with that Army as a nucleus for the expansion of the force in a period of emergency were the reserve of officers, class A and B, and Volunteer reserve. With this reserve we are confronted with much the same problem as in the case of the permanent force. Many of the reserve are due for retirement or are unwilling to extend their existing engagements so that some inducements must be offered to stimulate recruitment. This problem is the subject of anxious consideration, but final decisions have not yet been reached. As soon as they have been reached, the terms will be promulgated and this will be done simultaneously with the publication of the terms for the regular Army. Intimately bound up with the question of the reserve is the future of that magnificent patriotic body of men in the Local Defence Force. We have decided not to disband this force but to retain it on a territorial basis as a second-line reserve of the Army. For that purpose the force will be reorganised, but until that is done, I appeal to all officers and men of the force to carry on and not to lose interest in their work.
As regards the Air-Raid Precautions service, it has been decided to retain the service in a modified form, but that form has not yet been determined. Meanwhile, there has been a gradual release from training and the more onerous duties of the service. Arrangements are also being made with local authorities to remove cowls from street lights and the surface raid shelters from streets.
To sum up, therefore, the present gross Estimate for £8,411,942 is made up as follows:—
|
Pay and Maintenance of the Army |
£5,135,510 or 61.05% |
of the Vote. |
|
Pay of Civilians |
514,132 or 6.10% |
,, ,, ,, |
|
Reservists' Grants |
12,310 or 0.15% |
,, ,, ,, |
|
Ordinary Stores |
580,505 or 6.90% |
,, ,, ,, |
|
Warlike Stores |
133,040 or 1.58% |
,, ,, ,, |
|
Incidental and Minor Services |
122,875 or 1.46% |
,, ,, ,, |
|
Gratuities |
1,488,250 or 17.70% |
,, ,, ,, |
|
Re-Enlistment Bounties |
75,000 or 0.89% |
,, ,, ,, |
|
Local Defence Force |
256,435 or 3.05% |
,, ,, ,, |
|
Air Raid Precautions Service |
93,885 or 1.12% |
,, ,, ,, |
|
That makes a total of |
£8,411,942 |
During the past four years, on the occasion of presenting the annual Estimate, I have reported to this House on the discipline, training, fitness and morale of the Army and of the other Emergency Services covered by the Army Vote. I have dealt with other matters on this occasion because of their immediate relevancy, but I should say that the forces have continued to live up to the high standards set before them, and have fully maintained the traditions of the past. Now it only remains for me, as Minister for Defence, to express the Government's and the country's gratitude to all the forces and services which have helped us through this emergency. The sacrifices and steadfastness of the men comprising these forces and services have been all that any country could desire, and the country as a whole owes a deep debt of gratitude to them.
