The legal duty under the Armed Forces Covenant does not extend to Royal Fleet Auxiliary personnel, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed in a written answer to the Conservative peer Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie, the UK Defence Journal understands.
Baroness Fraser had asked whether the Covenant extends to RFA personnel. Answering for the government, the Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, Lord Coaker, called the service a unique asset. “The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is a unique asset to Government, which we continue to invest in, working closely across Government to ensure the seafarers who work for the RFA have the employment conditions that reflect their essential work,” he said.
On who the duty covers, Coaker said: “The Armed Forces Covenant Legal Duty extends to members of the Regular forces and Reserve forces, as well as Veterans and their families (including the bereaved).” Each of those four groups, he said, is specifically defined in the relevant legislation. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary, a civilian-crewed service, does not fall within those categories.
RFA personnel are not excluded from consideration altogether. Coaker said organisations that have signed the Armed Forces Covenant pledge were encouraged to consider the needs of other groups in the wider armed forces community where individual circumstances merited it. “This includes members of the RFA that have seen duty on defined military operations,” he said.
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is a civilian-staffed flotilla owned by the Ministry of Defence that supplies and supports Royal Navy ships at sea, providing fuel, stores, ammunition and aviation support, as well as operating amphibious and hospital vessels. Its personnel are civil servants and merchant sailors rather than commissioned or enlisted members of the armed forces, a status that places them outside the categories the Covenant’s legal duty is written to cover, even though RFA ships and crews routinely deploy alongside the Royal Navy and into operational theatres.
The Armed Forces Covenant sets out the principle that those who serve, or have served, and their families should not be disadvantaged by their service, and the legal duty arising from it requires specified public bodies to have regard to that principle in areas such as healthcare, housing and education. The distinction in Coaker’s answer is between that statutory duty, confined to the defined groups, and the broader spirit of the Covenant, under which signatory organisations may extend support more widely at their discretion.
The status of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary has drawn attention amid wider concern over pay and conditions in the service, which has seen industrial action by its personnel over pay, the first in its history.
Absolute bullshit…again.
Yep, it’s the usual bureaucratic clap trap. They will soon squeal if the RFA are not present.
👍🙃
The Government are playing a very dangerous game. Have they asked the RFA personnel if they consider themselves civil servants?
The people of the RFA are members of the Merchant Navy and have been since it was created in 1905. RFA people have died in both world wars and as late as the Falklands War in 1982.
Of course a Government spokesperson would tell me, “You have made a mistake, the Falklands was a Conflict not a War because no declaration of war was ever made”.
Our service men died. RFA men died. RFA ships were given Battle Honours.
The Royal Navy considers and has named the RFA as the fifth arm of the Royal Navy.
The pernickety people are going to destroy the RFA because they will not give 1,000 personnel a pay rise commensurate the the other services.
What will happen then?
I am an RFA Veteran. I have the South Atlantic Medal and one other campaign medal.
Politicians Michael. Very simple…in their minds anyway. They are so busy fighting for their own survival they forget they were elected TO SERVE the people.
Outstanding again eh? Tell that to RFA Falklands widow’s. These people are beyond contempt.
It’s none of these comments that’s ‘ve read so far.. it’s a simple explanation of the law. Whether the law should change to include RFA is another question. (In my view definitely yes) But let’s be clear what this is saying.
An unpopular take, I imagine, but a correct one. By definition, merchant sailors aren’t armed forces, even if they’re effectively being utilised in the same way to make up hull numbers. It’s ridiculous, but a legal definition from well before the current government.
I do wonder though, aren’t RFA personnel considered RN reservists? Wikipedia seems to think so, but its not an area I have any knowledge of. If so, that would qualify RFA personnel as covered by the Covenant
There is no legitimate excuse for this. RFA is one example, but there are numerous others of people who are technically civilians on the public payroll, but still obliged to deploy to disagreeable places and be put in potential harm’s way. There are also people serving in the armed forces who have wangled desk jobs and are never seriously inconvenienced by their roles. The legal duty is confined to ‘serving’ personnel purely because the government acknowledges that duty only grudgingly and seeks to scope it as narrowly as possible.