Mr. Michael Howard:

I know I should not discuss any of the negotiating positions we may take in the future. With the latitude of the Chair, I can assure the committee that we will still not be trying to amalgamate it into core pay because there are unique conditions of military life. People are subject to military discipline and are liable for service 24-7. They are exempted from certain protections that other employees have because of the hazards of military life. We have to recognise that in their basic pay because it is universal for all of them. However, we must do so in a way that is ring-fenced so that somebody else somewhere else cannot say "I'm an electrician. A soldier who is an electrician gets paid more than I do". We have to have that element of the soldier's pay that is unique to the Army clearly identified.

I accept the Deputy's point about scope for amalgamation in the future. I accept the fact that from a presentational point of view this is difficult for somebody who comes to it for the first time. I hope the committee will understand that sometimes one evolves a situation like this because we can only address our business within the policies and constraints that bind us. In that context, the associations arrived on the scene representing a workforce that had never had the right of representation before. They naturally had a lot of issues. We dealt with them this way because it was the only way we could deal with them but neither could we refuse to hear them. At that time, they made the point - I believe reasonably - that they had never had an opportunity before to go to any forum with a pay claim of any kind. Just when they arrived the era of making individual pay claims was over so they did have specific issues and we dealt with them as we did. It may not have been ideal but within the constraints we had it was the only way we could. In the different situation we are in now, the Deputy is right that there is scope for amalgamation.