Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Grand Committee

Considered in Grand Committee

17:48

Moved by

[Lord Coaker]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, the purpose of this order is to continue into force, for another year, the legislation that governs the Armed Forces—the Armed Forces Act 2006. By way of background, Parliament renews the Armed Forces Act every five years through primary legislation. This first happened in 2011, then in 2016 and most recently in 2021. It will next be renewed in 2026. However, in the intervening years, an annual Order in Council, such as the one before us today, must be approved by both Houses. This will keep the Act in force for a further year, but for no later than 14 December 2026, when the present Act is due to expire. A new Armed Forces Act will therefore be required to be in place by December 2026 to renew the 2006 Act for a further five years, and then we will resume the practice of yearly renewals.

Having detailed the legislative framework for the draft order, I wish to turn to some of what lies at the heart of our Armed Forces. After announcing the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, we recently unveiled our comprehensive strategic defence review, which declares clearly this Government’s intent to meet the threats we are facing and return the UK’s Armed Forces to a state of war- fighting readiness. This is why we are putting people at the heart of our defence plans. As set out in the strategic defence review, there will need to be a whole-of-society approach—wider participation in national resilience and renewing the nation’s contract with those who serve. In support of that approach, it is therefore essential that we improve the recruitment and retention of our personnel. This is why the Government have made the largest pay increase for serving personnel in more than two decades.

We will expand opportunities for young people to experience more of what the Armed Forces have to offer, delivering a 30% increase in cadets and introducing a voluntary gap year scheme. Further to this, we have brought back 36,000 military homes from the private sector as part of plans to transform Armed Forces accommodation, while we will also deliver a generational renewal of military accommodation with at least £7 billion of funding this Parliament, including over £1.5 billion of new investment for rapid work to fix the poor state of forces family housing. We are intensifying efforts to root out bullying and harassment, which have, as we all know, no place in our Armed Forces.

Against the backdrop of improving support for veterans, as exemplified by the new VALOUR programme, which will see VALOUR regional field officers working closely with local services and local government bodies on the application of the principles of the Armed Forces covenant for the betterment of our veterans. We will be updating kit and equipment across all three services to ensure that our nation and those who serve and will be serving in the future are ready to fight the war of tomorrow. That will mean harnessing artificial intelligence, drones, cyber technologies and other innovations alongside more traditional approaches to land, sea and air warfare to make us stronger and safer, because tomorrow’s conflicts will belong to the smartest and most innovative, as the war in Ukraine has shown and is showing.

The defence review sets out a path for the next decade to transform defence and help make it an engine for growth, boosting prosperity and jobs across the whole of the UK while continuing to lead within NATO, ensuring our security is protected through collective power and capabilities. To achieve this, we need to ensure that we maintain a strong and effective discipline framework for our Armed Forces, which the Armed Forces Act 2006 provides and which this order maintains for a further year. The 2006 Act contains nearly all the required provisions for command, discipline, justice, enlistment, pay and redress of complaints. It provides the legal basis and associated powers for offices such as the Judge Advocate-General and the Director of Service Prosecutions, as well as the various service courts. Further, it establishes the Service Police Complaints Commissioner and the tri-service Defence Serious Crime Unit, and contains the legislation for the Armed Forces covenant. In short, the 2006 Act is a vital piece of legislation that our Armed Forces cannot function without.

Those in service protect the nation, our allies and partners and global stability wherever in the world they serve. It is only right, as I know all Members of the Committee will agree, that in this debate we honour their bravery, courage and unflinching duty through the small token of providing consent today. To that end, all of us here pay tribute to their public service. I beg to move.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I support this continuation order. As has been explained, it keeps His Majesty’s Armed Forces legal until after the Armed Forces Bill in 2026 is enacted. The Minister has given a good trailer for the debate that we will have on Friday on the strategic defence review, so I will not respond on that.

I would like to make just one point. When the 2021 Act was being debated, I, Lord Mackay of Clashfern and other noble Lords pressed for the obligation to have “due regard” to the Armed Forces covenant to be extended from local authorities to include central government departments. We quoted, as examples in need of central government consideration, Gulf War syndrome and the right of abode in the UK for Hong Kong Military Service Corps veterans who had served full time in the Armed Forces. A compromise was reached, and the issue was set aside for further examination.

The present Government have made it clear from the outset that they would extend the responsibility for supporting the covenant to central government. This is most welcome—it will, I assume, be legally formalised when the 2026 Bill is being considered—but the importance and reach of the Armed Forces covenant has had a very long incubation. I was one of the first to raise an amendment to the covenant legislation, which I tabled to the 2011 Bill nearly 15 years ago.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I support this continuation order. I start by declaring my interests as a director of the Army Reserve and the chairman of the Reserve Forces review in 2030. I will ask a couple of questions but, in looking forward to next year’s Armed Forces Act, I also want to make a couple of suggestions.

Historically, we have always focused on our obligations under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. This is why we have a relatively small regular Army but one that is at high readiness and is expeditionary in nature: we always plan to fight a relatively short war in continental Europe. Equally, it is why we have a relatively small reserve. However, our planning assumptions have been called into question as a result of the war in Ukraine, which has been an extended campaign, meaning that we have to look carefully at both regeneration and reconstitution. It is also, in effect, a war between two reserve armies.

I absolutely welcome the SDR because it has, for the first time, forced us to look seriously at Article 3 and homeland defence—something where, in the past, we have perhaps not paid attention to the detail in the way we should have done. It is clear that, with the focus now on both Article 5 and Article 3, the demand on the workforce is going to increase significantly. That is recognised in the SDR. I was pleased to see that one of the recommendations was that the size of the reserves should increase by 20%—albeit with the caveat of “when we can afford it”—but, looking forward, I have some concerns.

First, we have the most wonderful department in the Ministry of Defence, as well as wonderful civil servants, but it is not a department that is set up for legislation. I wish to share my own experiences, having been the Minister responsible for two of the previous Armed Forces Acts. When the time came, we sometimes struggled to make some of the provisions we wanted to make, because we simply ran out of time. So my first plea to the Minister is this: can we get ahead of this and make sure that the work is done? The last principal muscle move was in 2006, when the single services used to have three different sets of service law. We combined those into a single Armed Forces Act in 2006 and I am sensing, from where we are today, that the next Armed Forces Act will also have to be a significant piece of work. As your Lordships are probably aware, the regular Army and the Army Reserve are dealt with through two separate pieces of legislation, and delivering a whole-force solution adds complication. I fear that what we will have to do in the next Armed Forces Act is combine those two pieces of legislation into a single Act, which will be a lot of work.

If the department does not necessarily like legislation, one thing it absolutely loves is policy. Every time we face a challenge, we seem to wrap around yet another piece of policy. We now have something of a Gordian knot of policy and I rather hope that, come the next Act, the Minister will adopt the role of Alexander and slice through much of it, because it prevents us having the flexibility to access society through the reserve and the regular force to deliver all the skill sets that we need. We have great aspirations to deliver zig-zag careers, enticing people to come into the Armed Forces, leave, go into civilian life and potentially come back. We have great aspirations from a regular reserve perspective for people to dial up or dial down their military service, but our policy makes that quite complicated, particularly our terms and conditions of service.

18:00

To give just one example, in the Army Reserve we have no less than nine categories for reservists: part-time volunteer reserves, like me; officer training corps; specialist advisers; sponsored reserves; specialists; musicians; lateral entry reserves; specialist reserves; and, of course, the regular reserve. While it is possible to move between those categories, it is not easy and certainly not quick. That does not deliver the flexibility we need. If I have one plea for the next Armed Forces Act, it is that we simplify, simplify, simplify. We must make it more straightforward to access people and for them to move between different service categories so that we can use their talent.

As a practical example, all too often people join the Army Reserve not because they want to use their skill set but because they want to do something completely different. I recently met an Army platoon sergeant in an infantry battalion, who was actually a vet. There comes an age when you probably do not really want to jump in and out of trenches but to use your core skill set. However, the ability for him to transfer from being a sergeant in an infantry battalion to use his professional skill set as a vet is possible, but goodness me it is long winded and slow. We need to address that.

I have two other points. Through the Ministry of Defence Votes A, your Lordships will realise that Parliament sets the upper limit of the numbers of our Armed Forces. This is perfectly logical for the regular Army, because we have a fixed number and they all have to be paid for. However, we also fix the upper limit of the number of the reserves. I see no logic why, because they are entirely different. The control mechanism for the number of reserves is not how many we have, because we pay for them only when we use them, but the budget we allocate to the reserve, which we can divide as and when we need. There is no logic as to why we would have a maximum number, as the demand signal for the number of uniformed personnel will only go up and we have no specific figure to date for how many we will need for homeland defence. The upper limit for the volunteer reserve and the regular reserve—those who have served in the regular Army but still have a reserve liability—in the reserve land forces is 67,580, for the Royal Naval Reserve and Royal Marines Reserve it is 23,420 and for the Royal Air Force reserves it is 17,450, according to this document. If you add all those up, I fear that the demand signal, once we factor in what we will need for homeland defence, is significantly more, so why are we artificially restricting ourselves to those numbers?

My final point is on funding. Fear not—this is a plea not for more funding but for consistent funding. The Ministry of Defence has one of the most complicated accounting processes that I have ever met. To try to simplify it, it is split into two: CDEL, or capital funding, and RDEL, or revenue funding. Within revenue funding, we have committed spend and uncommitted spend. Rightly, the pay and salaries of our regular Armed Forces come under committed spend; it cannot suffer in-year savings. While the pay rise is welcome, that goes into an increase in committed spend, which means that the amount of uncommitted spend reduces.

Of course, the Reserve Forces are funded through uncommitted spend. Therefore, every year, they are potentially subject to in-year savings. This is very complicated and difficult. It means that, although we say to an Army reservist, “We want you to come and do this staff job. We want you to commit to 120 days per year and reorganise your civilian career so that you can come and make your contribution. This is how many days you have to commit”, historically, through successive Governments, we have then turned around and said to them, “I’m very sorry but, because your funding is uncommitted, we’re going to have to cut the funding and you won’t be able to do as many days as you can do”. It will come as no surprise to anybody that, when it comes to retention, this is a major problem.

So my plea as we move forward is this: can we please treat all of our uniformed personnel on the same basis? We should treat, at the start of the financial year, the funding for those individuals—in the case of the reserves, it can simply be one pot of gold that we can then carve up—as committed funding. Only if it is committed funding can we then say to the reservists that we genuinely value them and can guarantee them a certain amount of work this year; that will mean us being able to retain them.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am acutely aware that I am likely to be interrupted by the Bells.

The statutory instrument in front of us is one that we are very used to. I was listening to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, and the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, and thinking that I am obviously very new to these annual events because I have been here only since 2014; you feel that you are getting older, as they seem to speed up every year. In many ways, there is little to be said on this Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order because, by definition, we all want our Armed Forces to continue. If Parliament did not approve the SI, we would still have Armed Forces, but they would not be subject to enforcement and so on. Inevitably, I wish this statutory instrument well; I also pay tribute to His Majesty’s Armed Forces and everything that they do for us.

As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, pointed out, the Minister seemed in his opening to be trialling his speech for the SDR on Friday; perhaps he is aware that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, will probably steal any thunder that any of us may feel we have. I think that it is a good thing to rehearse some of the SDR issues.

In the light of that and the Minister’s comments about forces accommodation, he has bandied around some figures but is he sure that the money will be wisely spent and that, at the end of this Parliament, he and any other defence Minister will be able to say that forces accommodation is now up to standard? We are about to have a Division, I believe, on decent home standards for His Majesty’s Armed Forces. We are told that the standard of forces accommodation meets decent home standards, yet the feedback is so often that there is black mould and there are all sorts of questions about the accommodation. What security and confidence can the Minister give us on that?

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, also reminded us that the last time we had an Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order, we discussed— I was part of the discussion, and I have raised this matter on several occasions—bringing the Armed Forces covenant under the purview of central government and making central government accountable. Like the noble and gallant Lord, I welcome the Government’s commitments on this and wonder when we can expect to find out more about them. As promised, here is the Division.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

My Lords, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.

18:08

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

18:17

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

My Lords, as all noble Lords are back, we may as well resume.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, in finishing, I want to reinforce the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, and ask not for more money for His Majesty’s Armed Forces—not least because this statutory instrument does not allow us to do that—but for the Minister and the MoD to think about making sure that our Armed Forces personnel are fully covered. A lot of the wording around numbers in the SDR says “when the financial circumstances arise”, but our Armed Forces are the bedrock of our security and defence. We should put them first in everything we do.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her impeccable judgment on timing, which worked very neatly. As she said, it seems that, every year, this comes round sooner than the year before; it is a bit like how policemen are getting younger. Anyway, here we are to approve the continuation of the Armed Forces Act 2006 for another year.

Apart from the necessary attention to legal process, this is a welcome opportunity to pay tribute to and thank our Armed Forces personnel for the incredible work that they do on our behalf. Some of those to whom we perhaps do not pay sufficient tribute are the ranks of talented civil servants over there—they were of enormous support to me when I was a Minister—so we should extend our thanks for the support that the MoD gives to both the political process and our Armed Forces personnel. I thank the Minister for opening the debate on the order and echo his praise for our men and women in uniform.

This debate provides an important opportunity to reflect on the previous year in defence. Over the past year, we have seen the international security environment deteriorate further. Russia is continuing its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Iran has become emboldened to lash out. Iranian-backed Houthis from Yemen sank two ships in the Red Sea just this month, and the conflict in Israel and Gaza is showing few signs of abating.

Currently, the carrier strike group, led by the fleet flagship HMS “Prince of Wales”, is in the South China Sea, reinforcing our global reach and maintaining freedom of navigation. As a country, we can take pride in the professionalism of our Royal Navy sailors doing so much to stand up for our country globally.

We have seen ever more harrowing attacks on Ukraine by Russia. Increased use of drones has meant that, as of 31 May 2025, 13,341 Ukrainians have been killed and 32,744 have been injured in Putin’s illegal war. The Government are to be commended for their continued, resolute commitment to aid Ukraine in repelling Russian aggression. With the recent announcements of the coalition of the willing, which has the best wishes of these Benches, we hope that further progress can be made on ending the war.

As my noble friend Lord Minto and I have said, we welcome the broad direction of the strategic defence review. I know that we will have a fuller debate on that matter on Friday, so I shall not delay the Grand Committee by dwelling on it. Suffice to say that, while I genuinely welcome the Government’s acknowledgement that much more must be done to bolster our defence capabilities, I shall have a number of questions arising out of the SDR, but the Minister will have to contain his excitement as to what those questions are until Friday.

I was very struck by what my noble friend Lord Lancaster said about the reserves, given his profound knowledge of them and his own military experience. He raised a number of interesting points, which I confess had not previously occurred to me, but I think are substantive. As we live in a new threat environment, with increasing need for resilience and swiftness of response, they are very well-made points, and I look forward to the Minister’s comments on them.

What I would like to stress at the moment applies to the Northern Ireland veterans. The Minister was helpful last week when he said that there would be a Statement soon on this matter, which is a welcome development; we might finally know what the Government are planning with regard to the legacy Act. I might point out that I did not get an answer to the question that I asked last Monday: does the Minister think that recruitment and retention in the Armed Forces will be aided by constantly relitigating cases where veterans were simply doing their jobs? The recent case of Soldier C—who has already faced multiple investigations and been cleared each time but has now been told as a very elderly man that he may face another investigation and possible prosecution—is more than egregious. I do not expect the Minister to comment on media commentary that the Minister for Veterans and People, the honourable Mr Al Carns, is allegedly deeply unhappy about possible changes to the legacy Act, but it underlines the need for urgent clarity by the Government as to their position.

On the issue of retention and recruitment, we all know how much service accommodation requires improvement. My right honourable friend in the other place, James Cartlidge, when a Minister in the MoD, began the process of buying back the estate from Addington Homes, to which the Minister referred. This was the first step in resuming control by the MoD over living conditions. But that work is not yet complete, and the next step requires further structural innovation and change and further investment. That is why my right honourable friend has launched his policy of instituting an Armed Forces housing association, where our service personnel would be part of the association governance, to better meet the needs and listen to the voices of our service men and women. I hope that the Government consider that a constructive proposal.

Finally, it would be remiss of me if I did not continue to push the Minister on the money. We know that the Government have decided to shift spending on intelligence to the definition of defence spending but, so far, it is not quite clear exactly how much of that intelligence spending will be redefined as defence expenditure. Could the Minister enlighten the Grand Committee on that point? Does the Minister have full confidence that the Government will be able to reach the new NATO defence spending targets?

I look forward to the Minister’s response but, of course, confirm that these Benches support the statutory instrument to keep the Armed Forces Act current in law.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all the noble Lords who participated in the debate, particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Goldie. They expressed their support—I know it is true for every single Member of the Committee and across the whole Chamber—for our Armed Forces and the recognition of their work, both seen and unseen. It is quite right for all of us to remember that. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, in recognition of the work that he does, we know that many Members are either still active or have been active as former military, and we continue to pay tribute to them. I thank the noble Lord for the work that he does, and I want to make sure that when we thank the Armed Forces we also include the reserves. I know that we would all wish that he conveys that message to them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, paid tribute to the civil servants as well. I like to think that, by and large, we are served well by the Civil Service in this country. They get some stick sometimes but in my experience, they are they are pretty good. I have one word, that I will not use—sometimes, I think that perhaps they could do a little better at understanding, but I shall leave that to my private secretary who is here and knows exactly what word I mean. But overall, they are a tremendous and great credit to our country. They deserve more support and recognition than they often get. I thank the noble Baroness to pointing that out; it was well made.

I shall go through a few of the points in no particular order. The noble Baroness talks about spending. She will know that the way in which this is now going to be included goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, about homeland resilience and Article 3. That is what has taken us down—the fact that for too long we have talked about Article 5 but not Article 3 in terms of civil defence, homeland resilience and homeland defence. That is why 1.5% is being talked about. What is included in the 1.5% will obviously be a matter for discussion and debate, but it will not include some of the silly suggestions that we have heard. There will be a debate about what it should include, because it will be part of building up to a significant homeland defence, civil resilience and all those sorts of things. So you will get whatever is spent on defence, plus that 1.5%. The noble Baroness, as well as other members of the Committee, will have seen the Government laying out that target of 2.6% by 2027. You can add 1.5% on it then, if you want, depending on how you get to 4.1%, the 3% in terms of defence spending in the next Parliament, and 3.5% by 2035.

In same way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said that I will have to wait for her questions on Friday and contain my excitement, she will have to contain her own excitement about when the Government lay out exactly how we will reach those figures. But that is the aim and policy of the Government—to reach that target in terms of defence spending. I know that this sentiment is shared across the House in the last Government, this Government, and all of us: I thank her for the general support for Ukraine and what we are doing with respect to that country. It is an important statement of this country regarding standing up for our principles and providing leadership not only in Europe but beyond. I thank her for that and for her reminder. It is an important statement. Our debates and discussions are read by others, so it is important that we continually reiterate those points.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for her comments about the carrier strike group, which is currently just off the coast in Australia for Operation Talisman Sabre. She will know, because I have mentioned it in the Chamber, that I was with the carrier in Singapore recently and with the other support ships, including the Spanish frigate. The air power that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, mentioned and will be pleased about is all over the carrier, with the F-35Bs on the deck projecting that hard power. There is also the soft power, the defence diplomacy and receptions that have taken place. It is easy to mock that, but the diplomats, friends and the military from other countries came on board the carrier as well as the other ship.

I will digress slightly if the Committee allows me. I visited HMS “Richmond” and the Spanish frigate in Jakarta, which as everyone will know is in Indonesia, to show the fact that the Indonesian Government were welcoming British warships into Jakarta, which I think is very significant, as well as allowing exercises to take place, which some of their senior military would go on, off the coast of Indonesia. It shows the importance of that carrier strike group and the importance of the fact that our military, with our friends, allies and partners from the region, are out there in that part of the world, emphasising the importance of what we do. I thank the noble Baroness for raising that and giving me the opportunity to talk about that and about Ukraine.

18:30

I also thank the Committee for its general support for the direction of the strategic defence review. Obviously, there are questions and there is a need for us to emphasise particular parts of that, not least the reserves. I shall ensure that the various points that the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, made with respect to the reserves are taken up—in particular, his request to try to simplify some of the issues with respect to that. I have told him and the Committee about the importance of homeland defence. The reserves will play an essential part in that, and we will have to discuss and debate how that is actually done.

I thank the noble Lord for drawing my attention to Ministry of Defence Votes A for 2025-26, which outlines the points that he was making about the way in which the budget is set, the spending headings within that and the maximum numbers. I shall take the points that he has made back to the department and make sure that they are considered alongside all that. It was very important for him to have done that, and I thank him for it.

I say to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, on the issue of the covenant, that I thank him and pay tribute to the work that he has done over so many years on the Armed Forces Covenant to ensure that that has happened. I thank him, too, for his support for the Government’s intention to extend that to central government and to extend the numbers of departments and areas of activity that it applies to. That will make a significant difference to our support for veterans and how we do that. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and the noble Baroness asked about the Armed Forces Covenant. It is our intention and aim for it to be a part of the Armed Forces Bill in 2026. It is our intention that that change will be brought about through that legislative framework. That would be helpful to both noble Lords.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked me about accommodation. The starting point for that is that, yes, we are confident that we will be able to take that forward; it will obviously be a programme of investment over a period of time. But the fact that the accommodation has been taken back into government control means that we will be able to have a proper series of investments over time. I shall not reiterate the debate that will have gone on in the Chamber about the amendment that was put for the decent homes standard to apply. But there are real difficulties with applying that particular standard to the Armed Forces as the amendment suggested, not least that it does not apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland, because housing is devolved. So, there are particular issues with that, but that should not and does not detract from the point that the noble Baroness made, and which her colleagues will have made, about the need for us to improve service accommodation. We will do that; it is not in the state that it should be, and we will ensure that we invest in it to get it to the standard that it needs to be. It is important that we do that.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Goldie, mentioned the whole issue of recruitment. It is clearly important, because we have problems in recruitment, but I think the noble Baronesses made the important point that we do not often speak as much about retention, and there is often an emphasis on recruitment. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, has often raised the point with me as well about ensuring that we keep the personnel. Accommodation is part of that, as well as the way we treat them, the way we respect them—I will give way in a moment—and the way they are dealt with, not only through pay but through childcare and all those other sorts of things. We have tried to do things to try to support and improve retention as well as recruitment, which is important as well.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I suppose I bring good news: I do not think we have a problem with recruitment. The one thing we do not have is a shortage of people wishing to join the Armed Forces. The problem we have is the self-imposed challenge through conversion. As ever, that is down to policy.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That is something to look at and to try and deal with. Certainly, some of the things I see suggest that there is a need for the process to be improved. One of the things we are doing is to try to improve the process as well.

Before I come to my final comments, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, would have seen the debate in the other place yesterday about veterans and Northern Ireland. As it stands at the moment, this is as much as I can say: the Government are discussing this very seriously with the Northern Ireland Office, veterans’ organisations and victims’ associations in Northern Ireland to try to ensure that we move to a situation that is acceptable and respects those veterans who have served us so proudly in the past. That is what we are seeking to do. When we are in a situation where there is agreement and we have a policy that makes sense and is acceptable, then we will be able to come forward and make a statement with respect to that. The noble Baroness is right to raise it, and it is an important issue. The office of my honourable friend Minister Carns is just next door to mine, as the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, know. I spend all my time talking to him, and he is working very hard on veterans affairs, bringing his particular experience, which I think is a great benefit to the Government—it would be of great benefit to any Government, but we are very proud and pleased that he is a member of our Government and is helping us with that, because of the obvious credibility he has.

Those are most of the points and questions that people raised in this short debate. Obviously, we will have a longer debate or discussion on Friday, with the whole day on the defence review, which the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, will lead and I will conclude. With that, I beg to move.

Motion agreed.

Committee adjourned at 6.38 pm.