Page 289 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
time of the 1985 inquiry. Only the RAVC has full-time military personnel in uniform who are qualified vets. There is no equine and canine hospital at Syerston, but there is one at Melton.
There is no equitation or farriery school at Syerston, although there is at Melton. There is no built-up urban environmental training facility at Syerston, which is a remote rural location. There are no officers’ married quarters, there-only a few NCOs’ and airmen’s quarters. There are no shops or welfare facilities, and the nearest doctor is seven miles away. All these things are fully and immediately available in Melton Mowbray, a growing town of nearly thirty thousand people.
As for Syerston, one needs to cross the busy A46 road to get to the adjoining land where any training would be done. Syerston will need to provide all these facilities or place them at RAF Newton and then transport the animals eight miles – wastefully – by road every day, a practice condemned on operational grounds by the Director of Army Veterinary Services in 1985. Inciden- tally, his professional report was suppressed by the then Director of Personnel, who declined to attach it to the working party report in 1985. I have seen the documents confirming that that was so.
No notice has been taken of the separate report by an independent expert, Mr Pagliero, who was originally commissioned by Mr R L Facer, who is still advising Ministers on this whole affair. Mr Pagliero concluded that the Army’s dog training was better than that of the RAF and that the work would be better done at Melton. Needless to say, the RAF and the MOD rejected this advice from an independent consultant, because it did not produce the conclusions that they wanted to hear.
As far as I can see, there are no operational advantages in the proposed course of action. I see very little point in a joint service animal school, anyway. The Army and RAF dogs are trained in different ways for different purposes. The different training techniques will have to continue separately, so why mess around with the present arrangements?
As for the horses, it is quite absurd to contemplate – even Lord Trefgarne did not – moving the horse facilities somewhere else, when they are working very well at Melton and would need total rebuilding in another place. I hope that the MOD also realises that the thirty- three civilian staff would probably be made redundant, since they are highly unlikely to be able to move to Newton or Syerston. Yet they are highly trained and skilled, and used to dealing with animals.
Apart from the entire new building infrastructure which will be needed, there will have to be new kennels, new paddocks and new fencing, and cattle and sheep will have to be available for training and for effective pasture management. The RAVC is also converting some of its buildings in order to move a laboratory to Melton
Mowbray from Aldershot. What is to happen to it? Will my Hon. Friend give a categorical assurance that he will give the highest priority to the expert veterinary advice which he receives on the project? That should be a paramount consideration.
The only possible reason for this upheaval seems to be the hope that the whole Melton site can be sold off for housing development. I have already explained to my Hon. Friend why that is very unlikely; but I will not do the job of the consultant to the developers by explaining why here and now. If the Ministry wants to rationalise its estate, let it start with all that wasteful property in London to which the National Audit Office drew attention in recently published reports. Perhaps the MOD could raise umpteen millions by selling the main building in Whitehall, which churned out a dozen reports on the RAVC in twenty years, but produced no action.
I suggest that my Hon. Friend contemplate what happened to the proposed move of the radar section at RAF North Luffenham to RAF Henlow; or the proposed move of the aviation medical centre at North Luffenham to RAF Mount Batten; or the proposed joint service music school. All these published plans fell apart under serious scrutiny by the NAO, the PAC and the Ministry itself. I strongly suspect that the same will happen with this cock-eyed scheme, and it might save a lot of staff time to drop it now.
I ask my Hon. Friend to think of the effect on service morale of all this fiddling about. The RAVC has very important military duties to perform – against terrorism in Northern Ireland, and in Germany, Hong Kong and Cyprus. It does no good for the morale of the Corps if it feels that its main Unit at Melton is under threat. Many former members of the Corps retire in the Melton Mowbray area, where they are popular and valuable members of the community. The RAVC Unit makes a fine presence at the annual Remembrance Day parade, and the Commandant always takes the salute. In Melton, queen of the shires, where horses and dogs are a way of life for so many, the RAVC is an honoured and integral part. Only last April, the mayor of Melton and the leader of the council wrote in glowing terms to the Adjutant General of the Army about the RAVC.
My advice to my Hon. Friend is to dump the plans. If he must proceed with an animal joint service centre, he should ask himself which Unit has a veterinary hospital, a Rype village, 40,000 acres of free land, a farriery and equitation school and unrivalled expertise with dogs and horses. The answer, of course, is Melton Mowbray. We are proud of our vet camp, as we call it. Let the new centre for all the armed services be based there, if there has to be one at all, but the best course of action would be the status quo, as was recommended to Ministers by Admiral Herbert, Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff in December 1984.
281