New clause 2 - Re-employment of armed forces
Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Gerald Howarth (Aldershot, Conservative)
The hon. Lady is privileged to represent a beautiful part of the kingdom, which is populated by a plethora of airfields. As an aviator, I love to see airfields wherever I go, so I certainly believe that she is privileged to represent such a constituency. House prices are lower in her part of the world, but she knows full well that in the south-east the average price of a property is about £175,000. Indeed, in my part of the world, that is probably the starting price, but certainly in the south-east as a whole and in other parts of the country—the north-east is catching up—the amount of money that we are discussing is not much for a deposit.
I am not saying to the Minister that there should be a set sum, but there should be more flexibility. Will the Department think about that and ascertain whether a way can be found to provide more flexibility without having people commute their entire income stream in future to fund property acquisition? He should pay a little more heed to that and listen a little more sympathetically to our arguments.
I am sorry that the Minister is not prepared to accept new clause 2 and the abatement issue, for the reason that I gave in my intervention. I can understand the argument that if someone has left the service and is now re-employed in a similar role they should not be entitled to ratchet up a socking great new salary on the back of no longer being employed in the armed forces. However, there may be people with particular skills whose value to a service community increases over a period of time, and in such cases locking them into a capped income is not fair. The Minister should have been more sympathetic to that.
The new clause is essentially probing and we may revisit these matters on Report, in another place or on Third Reading. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.