» Thursday, June 5, 2008Armed Forces Pay
Asked what the Prime Minister’s response was to Sir Richard Dannatt’s comments and did he think it was unusual for such a senior figure to comment in this way, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was asked a similar question following his meeting with the Cypriot President. To repeat what the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Defence had been saying, the PMS said that the armed forces was the leading public sector pay award last year and there was a nine per cent increase last year for the lowest paid. In addition there was a new tax-free bonus for those in Iraq and Afghanistan paid from the reserve and of course you had to look at the package available to the armed forces as a whole, which also took into account housing, food tax relief, operational allowances, school allowances and so on. The PMS said it was not unusual for senior generals to speak out on issues relating to the services from time to time. The Ministry of Defence had been putting some of his comments in a wider context both last night and this morning. Put that the Prime Minister had mentioned a White Paper on the armed forces being published, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had been referring to the fact that there was a commitment to either a Green Paper or a White Paper from the Ministry of Defence to look at the terms and conditions of the armed forces insofar as how other Governmental departmental services affected them. So this was a cross-Government piece of work looking at issues like access to the health service, schools and so on and from memory he thought that that was something the MOD had committed to. The PMS did not have any information on the exact timings of that, but we would go back and check. Briefing took place at 11:00 | Search for related news Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says. |
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The Prime Minister actually met with the South Cypriot President. To say he is the President of Cyprus is to openly offend one third of the population of Cyprus which just shows that Britain is not interested in a just settlement.
Comment by Neil Regan — 7 Jun 2008 on 5:34 am | Link