New uniform offence and Bank Holiday to celebrate Armed Forces - Times Online
New uniform offence and Bank Holiday to celebrate Armed Forces
(Dominic Lipinski)
Personnel from RAF Wittering, near Peterborough, were told not to walk the local streets in uniform
A special Bank Holiday is being considered by the Government to honour and celebrate the work of the Royal Navy, Army and RAF, as part of a new drive to draw the military and the public closer together.
To encourage members of the Armed Forces to wear their uniforms in public as often as possible, legislation is also to be introduced to make it a criminal offence to discriminate against military personnel in Service dress or combat fatigues.
Anyone who physically attacks a serviceman or servicewoman in uniform will also be charged with an “aggravated offence” to underline the extra seriousness now being attached to the well-being and security of Armed Forces personnel when in the public eye.
The new developments appear as recommendations in an official report called National Recognition of our Armed Forces, drawn up by Quentin Davies, the MP and former Tory shadow defence minister who switched to Labour in June last year. He was asked by Gordon Brown to investigate ways of improving the relationship between the military and the civilian public.
Mr Davies said the creation of a special Armed Forces Day, which he envisaged could be merged into the existing Veterans’ Day, would not detract from the significance of the annual Remembrance Sunday. He said this would remain a “precious national institution”.
In his report, he said that if the Government decided to create another public holiday in honour of the military, he believed it should be set on a Friday or Monday at the end of June.
If not a Bank Holiday, then it should be a Saturday so that schoolchildren and most working adults would be available to attend events, Mr Davies said. Senior military figures have already expressed support for a national day of celebration for the Forces.
Among his 40 recommendations published yesterday, Mr Davies suggested that lessons on the role of the Armed Forces in society should be inserted into the national curriculum, and he urged the setting up of more Combined Cadet Corps in schools.
It also recommended more visits to schools by representatives of the Armed Forces, although not for recruiting purposes.
Of the 6,400 secondary schools in the United Kingdom, only 260 have CCF units and most of them are in grammar and independent schools.
Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, reacted positively to these two recommendations. “I believe Combined Cadet Forces can make a huge difference to the young people who join them, and it’s also important for them to understand the diverse role of the Armed Forces,” he said.
The report also proposed launching a modern equivalent of the Royal Tournament, which was scrapped because of the cost and pressure on Service personnel. Mr Davies said it would not be practicable to revive the Royal Tournament itself, but suggested a possible link up with television journalists and other interested parties, such as Ross Kemp and Jeremy Clarkson.
In a foreword to the report, the Prime Minister said he believed the public was fully behind the men and women of the Armed Forces, but he felt there was a need for greater understanding of “the work they do in our name”.
Mr Davies also said that the military and public had drifted apart in recent years, claiming that society had become more “individualistic, hedonistic and materialistic”, compared with the values of self-sacrifice shown by the Armed Forces.
It was also accepted, he said, that the unpopularity of the Iraq War had had an impact on public opinion, although he emphasised that the Armed Forces were loyally carrying out the orders of the politicians.
Mr Davies condemned recent incidents where Service personnel had been picked on by members of the public.
His report highlighted incidents at Birmingham and Edinburgh airports last year when soldiers and Royal Marines returning from duty in Afghanistan were either told to put on civilian clothes before going through the terminal or were diverted to keep them out of the public eye.
In his report Mr Davies also referred to the policy adopted by Harrods, the Knightsbridge department story, of banning military personnel wearing combat fatigues.
Harrods confirmed to Mr Davies and his inquiry team during their 17-month investigation that it excluded personnel in fatigues. “We regard any such rule as quite unacceptable,” Mr Davies said.
Harrods, however, made it clear it did not ban military personnel who wore their Service uniforms. An incident in November 2006 when a Harrods security assistant prevented an army officer from entering the store wearing Service dress after a Remembrance Day ceremony had been a mistake, the department store said.
The report called for a much wider use of uniforms in public, reversing a policy which has been in existence ever since the IRA threat of the 1970s and 1980s, although Service personnel are already allowed to wear uniforms to travel to work and to attend functions. Mr Davies said he wanted the military to be “encouraged” to wear their uniform in public as often as possible, although he accepted it would not be right to do so “in night clubs or on the beach”.
His report also called for a more systematic approach to homecoming parades. These have increased since General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army, appealed last year to local authorities to organise more parades for Service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. But Mr Davies said regional commanders should approach local authorities to hold such parades.
Other recommendations included allowing senior officers from all three Armed Forces to have access to the media without having to get permission from the MoD.
