The question of the Defence Forces has, unfortunately, become a more prominent question in this country due to the growth of illegal activities over the past year and the country has become properly concerned with the state of the Army and the state of the auxiliary defence forces, principally the FCA.
The Minister, very rightly, praises the members of the Defence Forces for the service they have given to the country at home and in Cyprus and those members who are serving with the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organisation in the Middle East. They, indeed, deserve the praise given by the Minister and I should like to join with him in paying tribute to these men for their unselfish service.
It is, indeed, a matter for some wonderment that the Army has continued to give such a high standard of service when we consider that it has been the Cinderella in terms of Government attention and Government expenditure. There is, to my mind, a serious lack of research into and detailed consideration of the structure of our Army and the objects our Army should serve. I suppose basically one can say it is there for internal and external security but having regard to the size of our nation, I think that the question of internal security should be the priority considering the objectives our Army should have. One must wonder then whether our Army is structured and trained to deal with serious problems of internal security. Like most armies throughout the world, its command structure and its organisation are based, I suppose, on what could be termed the British hierarchical military structure and that, of course, is geared to an army fighting a war rather than an army primarily charged with internal security. I concede that the external aspect of the matter must have attention, too, but I think it has been the predominant feature in considering the structure of our Army. This is something that has never got attention so far as we know. We do not even know if the matter has been given any thought by the Minister or by his lay or professional advisers. Certainly no reference was made to it by the Minister in his speech when this Estimate first came before this House.
The Defence Act, 1954 provides for a Council of Defence to aid and counsel the Minister in matters pertaining to the operation of his Department. The Minister told me in reply to a Parliamentary question some time ago that that council had not met for a very long time indeed. I cannot find the exact date but I do not think the council has met since the Minister took office. The council consists of the Chief of Staff, the Adjutant General, the Quartermaster General and two laymen, one, I think, being the Secretary of the Department. I would suggest to the Minister that this is a grouping which should certainly meet formally and often particularly at the present time. The group should be charged or it, in turn, should charge some sub-committee of itself with the task of taking an overall view of the structure of our Defence Forces and how that structure can be related to the objectives of our Defence Forces which, as I say, would appear to be primarily concerned with matters of internal security.
I indicated here in the last debate on Defence that there were certain matters causing serious concern in the Army, matters fundamental to the morale of the Army. The Minister praised Army morale; he said it was good. Having regard to the burdens and the disinterestedness with which the Army is regarded by the central Government, morale is surprisingly good. But, considered objectively and on a normal standard, I would suggest to the Minister that morale is not as good as it should be. While, however, morale could be higher, the loyalty of the Army is beyond question. Loyalty to the State is extremely and consistently strong throughout all ranks, commissioned, non-commissioned and private. We can be very grateful, indeed, to these men for this loyalty. They deserve from the State conditions of service which ensure that their morale is kept at a high level. Morale is essentially being proud of the organisation one serves in and having determination to serve that organisation at a consistently high standard. In order to be proud of the organisation members of the Army should be made aware at all times by the central Government that they are regarded as an important part of the State apparatus. That they are so regarded should be made abundantly clear to them by their problems being examined and solved. There are a number of problems in relation to careers in the Army, problems which no apparent attempt has been made to solve.
I mentioned last year a problem in relation to the officer corps. Morale among officers could be higher. This could be brought about if some opportunities were provided for them to implement their professionalism. As I pointed out last year, there is no reward for an officer who makes himself professionally more efficient. An officer's career in the Army is conditioned by his place in his cadet class and his advancement depends on fortuitous circumstances; if some members of the classes ahead of him die or retire early he will get advancement. If these things happen he may be lucky and he may reach a very high rank, but he reaches that rank, by and large, irrespective of his professional capacity. This is stultifying to a man who is serious about a military career. It is a disincentive to an officer to study and expand his professional knowledge. So long as this system of promotion obtains the incentive will not be there.
How to provide the incentive raises difficulties because it carries within it a threat to those officers who do not make the grade professionally since they will not be promoted; they will have to retire at a comparatively early age. As things stand at the moment, they receive no training to enable them to adjust to job opportunities in civilian life. This goes right to the kernel of the military career and it needs to be examined as a matter of urgency. There was nothing in the Minister's statement to indicate that bowler-hatted officers, so to speak, have been the subject of any study in relation to promotion on a professional rather than a seniority basis. It would be a tremendous boost to morale in the Army if serving officers were aware that their careers after army life were getting serious attention. It would be a boost to morale if they were aware that the public were conscious of the problem and sympathetic towards it, sympathetic to the extent of industry and other civilian employment being prepared to take on these bowler-hatted army officers. This is the main grievance within the commissioned ranks at the moment.
Another frustration from which commissioned officers suffer is that the structure of the Army is geared for a much larger force. It is geared for a force that will allow of brigades, battalions, companies and platoons but, in effect, there are not enough men in the Army to form these units. These units may exist on paper and officers may have ranks commanding units on paper but, in actual fact, the units do not exist. It is frustrating for an officer who is a platoon commander to know that he has no men under him, that they are engaged on fatigues to keep the barracks going or that, because of extra guard duties at the moment, they are constantly out guarding various installations. It would be much better to scrap the present structure and take a completely new look at how our Army should be organised.
One avenue to be explored in this particular respect is that of local loyalties when it comes to recruitment. As a result of the trouble in the North, troops are at present stationed in areas in which there has been no garrison since the end of the war. This has led to a rush of applications from serving army personnel in other parts of the country to be posted to areas of which they are natives. I understand there is also an impetus in recruitment in these areas. If similar units—call them companies, active service units, or columns, to go back to the War of Independence —of a consistent strength could be located at other than traditional military centres these units would attract to themselves a growing number of recruits. They would provide a permanent nucleus without the high turnover rate at present experienced in the Army. In addition, they would provide a vehicle for the better integration of the FCA into the permanent Army.
I throw out this thought to the Minister, his Department and his advisers as one way of overcoming the difficulties of having an orthodox command structure without the men to man it. As I said, this would help in recruiting. It would certainly help to raise morale still higher and to improve contentment. A man who joins the Army expects to do military duties. He does not want to spend the bulk of his career on barrack fatigues interspersed with a minimum of military training. Unfortunately, that is what a lot of private soldiers have to endure at the moment. That is not conducive to morale and not conducive to retaining the soldier in the Army for a long number of years. It is one of the causes of the high turnover. Men just get fed up with carrying turf from the turfyard, sweeping floors, mess fatigues.
That brings me to another point that I would like to suggest to the Minister and that might help in overcoming some of these difficulties. The duties that have to be performed are military and fatigue duties. The fatigue duties, while irksome, are, nevertheless, essential. The ordinary life of the barracks must be maintained. The barracks must be kept clean and heated. Meals have to be provided. These operations involve duties of a non-military type, duties which, I would suggest to the Minister, are not physically arduous and which are essentially civilian in their nature. I would suggest to the Minister that he should consider the recruitment of civilian orderlies to carry out these duties. While not physically onerous, they would be ideal duties to be performed by persons with slight physical handicap who might not be suitable for employment in industry or the normal commercial sectors. The duties would be well within the compass of persons with slight physical handicap. They would be worthwhile work for these people. These persons could be remunerated at standard Army rates of pay because this is what is being paid for these duties at the moment. If these persons were recruited on a wide scale—there is quite a large number of persons who would be available for this type of employment —it would relieve a considerable number of soldiers to attend to more professional matters. It would ensure that their training as recruits would not cease, that there would be continued training in more advanced matters. It would mean there would be men available for field exercises. At the moment I understand that field exercises are nearly a rarity, whereas they should be commonplace. The reason is the men are not available. They are, by and large, on fatigue duties or, in present circumstances, on guard duties. This amount of excessive fatigue duty is detrimental to the morale of men and of officers because all they can do is mark time; they have not the men to do military duties with.
In addition to this inherent fault which arises from the structure of the Army, there are other matters which tend to militate against good morale and which can be cured without any radical restructuring. The first point under this heading would be the question of equipment. I am aware that the Government have announced the provision of a large sum for the purchase of extra equipment and it is a good thing that this is being done but it is a pity that it takes an emergency to do it. Instead of there being a regular supply of new equipment, even on a limited basis, over the years, we now have to have an emergency and large-scale purchasing. It is some months since this extra allocation was announced but I am not aware—certainly there has been no propaganda on the part of the Department — that much, if any, of this new equipment has arrived. I do see on the streets some landrovers with up-to-date vehicle registrations and I suppose one can deduce that these are part of the new equipment but the type of equipment the Army wanted was what I may call purely military equipment, armoured cars and armoured personnel carriers. The latter are particularly urgent in view of the activities of the British Army along the Border. Thank God, there have been no confrontations between our troops and the British Army but we do read of an amount of indiscriminate firing in that area and we do read that patrols of the Defence Forces have been summoned to attend at the scene. These men have to drive to the scene in thin-skinned vehicles, into a position where there is often indiscriminate firing and, for that reason, a position of danger. It behoves this House, the Minister and his Department to ensure that these men who go into this situation are as well protected as we can make them. One basic protection is that they would travel in armoured protected vehicles. At the moment they travel in landrovers with canvas sides which afford absolutely no protection. The purchase of suitable vehicles should have been a priority and they should be in service already. It is a pity that this has not happened.
During the year when I had occasion to ask the Minister by way of Parliamentary question when was the last time our anti-aircraft guns had practised, I found that they had practised last year but that they had practised on what the Minister described as selected natural targets, in other words, they had been firing at fixed targets on the ground. The whole point of anti-aircraft defence is that they have to train to fire at moving and swift moving targets in the air. I understand that we have no target plane, no plane which can draw a target and consequently those members of our artillery corps who serve in the anti-aircraft section are unable to practise their particular skill. This is something which is very detrimental to morale. It is no answer to say that anti-aircraft guns are being outmoded. One has only to read of the startling success achieved by North Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns are outmoded can aeroplanes, the swiftest and most modern of jet aircraft, to see that anti-aircraft defences are still viable, to use the modern word.
It may be suggested that we could not afford the sophisticated equipment but it is an essential feature of training to fire at moving targets. There must be great similarities in the type of weapon we have and the more modern weapon. The basic principles must be the same. It is a pity that our gunners are so little thought of and see themselves to be so little thought of that the obvious target, a moving target through the air, is not available for them. I gather the reason for that is that there is no plane to tow the target. This seems an extraordinary thing because all that is wanted is a single-ended old fashioned piston plane.