Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

So I understand where the noble Baroness is coming from. We want a system that is as open as possible and allows individuals to come forward with complaints, and that ensures that the commissioner takes those on board. However, that is more about the enactment of the legislation and the way the commissioner will act, rather than the wording in the Bill.

[Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, on her tenacious championing of the interests of Armed Forces personnel. I know that that commitment long predates my arrival in this House, so I step with some trepidation on to the noble Baroness’s territory. But, together with my noble friend Lord Beamish, I hope she can explain and help us to understand better what the proposal in the two amendments adds to the powers that the Bill already gives to the new commissioner.

I have been trying to approach this question from the point of view of the ordinary member of the Armed Forces who, as it is, is faced with different channels to take concerns through. When the Armed Forces commissioner is in place, there will be yet another channel, and it is unclear to me, if I were put in that position, when I would consider myself to be someone who was availing themselves of the existing channels and when I might consider myself to be a whistleblower, and what the difference would be.

I confess that I am not totally clear about the array of routes that someone in that situation might be able to take, and I wonder how the average member of Armed Forces personnel already navigates their way through the possible routes. As I understand it, the existing channels—forgive me if I have got this wrong—include the Ministry of Defence complaints procedure, a facility whereby people can report serious matters confidentially and, in some cases, anonymously; so that is similar to being a whistleblower. Another route appears to be the MoD’s serious concerns reporting facility: another confidential mechanism for raising serious concerns, which can be done online, on the phone or through an app. There also appear to be internal MoD policies that are already committed to protecting whistleblowers from retaliation or other detriments. The support available to people includes nominated officers outside the chain of command and a confidential hotline team.

On top of that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, referred to in her introduction, there is the reformed complaints system, which will introduce a new specialist tri-service team for taking the most serious complaints—which will include bullying, discrimination and harassment —outside the single service chain of command. As I understand it, that has been welcomed by the family of Gunner Jaysley Beck, who always remains in our thoughts when we are discussing these matters. A spokesman for the family said that those running the new system need to be truly independent, properly trained and committed to real accountability and transparency. I suggest that those are all our aspirations for the new Armed Forces commissioner.

On top of the channels that I have already mentioned will be added the Armed Forces commissioner. Will the noble Baroness take the opportunity to explain to us again, so that we better understand it, what adding a whistleblowing facility to what already exists would achieve? I also invite my noble friend the Minister to give us further assurance that anyone who in future has recourse to the services of the Armed Forces commissioner will be able to do so anonymously, in the same way that anyone designated as a whistleblower under any other system would be able to do. If the Minister could give us that reassurance, that might go a long way towards meeting the concerns the noble Baroness outlined in moving the amendment.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for not taking part in the Bill earlier. As the House will know, this is not my usual territory, but I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham for drawing my attention to the whistleblowing issue in it. I very much support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and the noble Earl, Lord Minto, which would add a whistleblowing function to the Bill and to the role of the commissioner.

Amendment 3 seeks to make it clear that someone who speaks out on the issues covered in the Bill—essentially, welfare issues—can take their concerns directly to the commissioner regardless of the service they are attached to, and will have the status of a whistleblower, with the respect and protections that come with that role, as established under our current whistleblowing law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, which include confidentiality. The commissioner will then be empowered to investigate again if the issues meet the criteria set out in the Bill—and investigation, as any survey of whistleblowers will tell you, is more important to those who speak out than even protection.

There is a distinction between someone who makes a complaint and someone who chooses to blow the whistle. A complainant is looking for very specific redress and quite rightly—there is nothing wrong with that; it is entirely appropriate—but a whistleblower, as we know from whistleblowers generally, is someone who has realised, recognised or seen the potential for something going seriously wrong. They are not looking for personal redress; they are raising the issue in order to achieve investigation. The commissioner can then make that decision, but that is a very different process and a very different aspect from making a complaint about an experience that you or a family member directly had. You may end up complaining and whistleblowing, but whistleblowing has to be recognised as a tool which directs investigators.

I spent part of this morning with the director of the Serious Fraud Office, who underscored the fact to an all-party parliamentary group that when you are an investigator, knowing where to investigate requires a flow of information. He said that the biggest help Parliament could give the Serious Fraud Office would be to empower whistleblowers, because that is where he finds the information and the direction that guide the investigation he needs to do. It seems to me that that applies just as much in the armed services—even if it is under the limited welfare umbrella—as it does anywhere else.

I will concede that the current whistleblowing law which frames whistleblower protections, the Public Interest Disclosure Act, is deficient and many of us are seeking to upgrade or replace it. But it is all we have today and at the very least, its protections should extend to the armed services. The Government have responded that they can simply put the protections into their policy document. Why does anybody think a policy document is legal protection? The Government also suggested, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, mentioned, that they could introduce an anonymity clause for the reports the commissioners publish, but I cannot see that anything in this amendment rules that out.

I could suggest further changes within the scope of the Bill to enable a whistleblowing process for the Armed Forces, but I think we have something very powerful in front of us today. The Bill creates something really exceptional and valuable—a truly independent commissioner whose future career does not depend on any of the armed services or on the Civil Service. He or she in that role has the potential to be a real game-changer when it comes to speaking out.

Again, if what we had in place was perfectly adequate, would we have had that report today from BBC Wiltshire of three more members of the armed services coming forward with the most extraordinary and shocking experiences? We have to recognise that what we have in place is not achieving what we want it to. That is why this amendment and the change it proposes is so important.

As we get legislative improvements—in this area and in other areas—for whistleblowing, protections will be more effective. We will avoid not just the scandals we have seen within the services but those in other areas—for example, the Post Office. We have a real chance, then, that wrongdoing can be tackled. If we want to enhance the morale of the armed services, show people that they are genuinely valued and encourage recruitment into the services, we can make it clear that there is a simple channel to a trusted individual—someone people can go to with a whistleblowing issue, not necessarily a personal complaint. There are few things that would do more to encourage people to hold our services in the very high regard that service members deserve than to provide someone with investigatory powers who is aware of the situation and has the detail and background to allow an investigation.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th March 2025 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and the reflections that he has offered the Committee. I rise to support Amendments 8 and 9. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for outlining their thinking around this issue because it goes to the heart of how we as a nation care for and see the well-being of our Armed Forces and their families, as part of the whole package that we offer to them.

As I think noble Lords know, I speak as the father of a member of the Armed Forces. It is often said that a parent is only as happy as their least happy child. On one level, I can imagine that it is also true that a member of His Majesty’s Armed Forces is only as happy as their least happy family member. So there is a pastoral duty here—one that is supported by many in the Armed Forces, including welfare organisations and our military chaplains—but both these amendments would help us really state the pastoral support that we as a nation feel is important for not only our Armed Forces personnel but their children, their families and their dependants.

As has already been said by other noble Lords, continuity of education is vital for a family that may often move around a lot during the career of service personnel, when one or both of the parents may be on deployment. We must not forget the small number of wonderful state boarding schools that offer important support for service families.

Moving on to tied accommodation, as somebody who has lived in tied accommodation all my professional life—most of it much more modest than what I live in at the moment—I know that the maintenance of tied accommodation and responsiveness to its condition and repairs has an impact on the state of morale of a family, and I am pleased to see that that is also mentioned, as are special education needs. Such needs are an issue not only when forces families move between different places and between different local authorities; this is also about CAMHS—child and adolescent mental health services. Often, the waiting list is two to three years. Moving out of an area has a profound impact on families in terms of getting crucial support for young people who are often in a very difficult state and who need support as soon as possible.

On Amendment 9, the reality is that many Armed Forces families live with, right at the back of their minds, an ongoing sense of, “Will I get a knock in the middle of the night?” The noble Earl, Lord Minto, has already spoken about the injustice of what is being built in here. We significantly need the Minister to look at this—I urge him to do so—so that that injustice is removed. If you go to the National Memorial Arboretum, there is an incredible memorial right in the centre where the names of those who have lost their lives are carved into the Portland stone, and then there is a part of the wall that is totally flat and bare; it is very moving to move your hand along it and on to that flat stone awaiting, God forbid, future names.

We owe to the Armed Forces and their families a sense of care if there is a need for a death in duty payment. So I am really grateful for the way in which the Minister has engaged around the Bill and engaged us in a really thoughtful discussion and debate about it. I look forward to hearing his comments.

[Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)]

I will speak to Amendments 11 and 12. It would be impossible to argue that the commissioner should not support the interests of women and minority groups, but I am not sure that this level of prescription, particularly in Amendment 11, serves the Bill well. We heard earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, about the volume of work that the commissioner will already inherit from the ombudsman, and there will be a lot of work on top of that.

I am a founder member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, so I obviously would want every public office to bear in mind and have due regard to the interests of those who have protected characteristics, as defined by the Equality Act 2010. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong, but I assume that the Armed Forces commissioner will be subject to the public sector equality duty, so that takes care of that aspect of their work. I accept that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, may come back to me and say that that does not necessarily guarantee that the level of focus that she would rightly like to see paid to the problems that some minority groups experience in their armed service life will be fully taken care of in the way that she would want from this amendment.

But my general point in arguing that the amendment may not sit well in the Bill is that one of the perennial themes of debate on the Bill, both here and in the other place, has been the much-welcomed independence of the Armed Forces commissioner. Independence implies a degree of freedom, discretion and flexibility. Therefore, it does not fit well with that level of independence to prescribe how that particular function would be carried out in such detail, in the way that this amendment does.

I have seen a lot of equality and diversity programmes that specify a lot of detail. The end result has been that, when it comes to the end of the year and the prescribed annual report is published, it is little more than a tick-box exercise, and we would not want that to be the consequence of an amendment like this. For that reason, I reluctantly find myself unable to support these two amendments.

[Lord Wrottesley (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 8 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich. The express intention of the Bill is to support those serving in His Majesty’s Armed Forces. There is no doubt that VAT on school fees will have an adverse impact on services families, who will more than likely find themselves serving overseas at some point in their careers, sometimes on multiple occasions, maybe as they start a family. A 20% increase in the cost of educating their children is absolutely a welfare issue, but it is equally a recruitment and retention issue.

As we have heard from the noble Lords tabling these amendments, families serving abroad rely on the stability that boarding schools provide—largely independent and private schools, but also schools from the state sector. The decision of a family, or in this case an individual, to start or continue to serve in His Majesty’s Armed Forces—after all, they are likely to be not particularly well paid, compared to their equivalents in other areas of public service, let alone in the private sector—will often rely on the add-ons and the benefits offered as a result of their serving as a member of His Majesty’s Armed Forces. As with SEND children, given that there are concerns that any proposed top-ups may not fully compensate the additional costs of VAT on school fees, why are we not going to exempt members of His Majesty’s Armed Forces from this additional financial burden? It may—I suggest that it will—dissuade people from starting or even going on to build a career in the Armed Forces.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is the honour of my life to be standing here this evening, and I still cannot believe that I am here. Speaking for the first time in your Lordships’ House is nerve-racking, but it has been made less so by the warm welcome and advice I have received from noble Lords and Baronesses across the House—I thank them all. I thank your Lordships for all the kindness and patience shown to me. I am particularly grateful for the generosity and support I have received from my supporters, my noble friends Lady Prosser and Lord Monks, and my mentor, my noble friend Lady Drake.

I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Barber on his excellent maiden speech last week, and thank him for his friendship and encouragement over many years. On the subject of thanks, I hope the staff of this House know that their fame goes before them. Their professionalism, helpfulness and sheer niceness are legendary, and my experience of them has exceeded all expectations. I thank all of them. It would be quite wrong to single out any individual, but my four year-old grandson would not forgive me if I did not mention “the nice man with the big golden necklace” who gave him a private tour of the Robing Room on the day of my introduction.

I am very grateful to be able to speak in this debate this evening. My father was a soldier. In his late teens, he was rescued by the British Army from a future with very limited opportunities in Dublin. He left school at 14, started out as an Army cook and ended up with the offer of a commission. His experience gave him a lifelong love for, and gratitude to, this country, sentiments he passed on to his six children, along with regular reminders to stay true to our roots, always work hard, respect the flag—and drink Guinness. Other drinks are available, but your Lordships, I hope, get the general idea.

My Army parents would have warmly welcomed this new Armed Forces commissioner, and so do I. I was a military child in another era. I lived with the rewards and drawbacks of life in a service family, but it is not so different today. Armed services families deal with unique stresses: postings, deployments, separations, and disrupted children’s education. I myself went to 10 schools. In some ways, it is worse now: at least we did not have to put up with substandard housing. This Bill will give personnel and their families a powerful champion who can respond to concerns, investigate systemic problems and make recommendations that will lead to action.

I spent my working life in the trade union movement. I saw the unsung, day-to-day co-operation between union officers and employers to make workplaces fairer and more productive. This unglamourous work improves working conditions, heads off problems, solves problems as they arise and gives union members independent representation. These advantages are not open to Armed Forces personnel. That is why I am so keen to see serving men and women have an independent authority with real power who can look after their interests and speak up for them.

My noble friend the Minister talked about the crisis in morale, recruitment and retention. It is indeed alarming that only four in 10 regular personnel are satisfied with their service life. In most years over the last quarter of a century, more people left than joined the regular forces. As my noble friend has reminded us, the main reason people leave the forces is the impact on family and personal life. The commissioner’s work can help make service life more attractive, but the commissioner alone cannot carry the full weight of personnel challenges. For example, I would suggest that we do not need any more reports or inquiries telling us that servicewomen are not getting the basic protections they deserve—to put it mildly. I welcome the Minister’s remarks about this in his introduction, and the comments on the same subject from the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie.

Our forces are under-capacity. Our country is vulnerable, and we cannot feel confident about our ability to respond effectively to threats. Modernisation and technology can mitigate reduced personnel numbers, but not entirely. These are matters for the strategic defence review and the Government’s broader defence strategy.

Seventy-seven years ago, the great trade union leader, wartime Minister and post-war Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, said this in the other place: “We must build up our own strength and our own Armed Forces so that we can play our full part in the defence of democracy.” Who would argue with that today? Bevin was speaking during the early Cold War, when western allies were establishing the architecture of international law and the world order that today looks increasingly fragile. I commend our Government’s response to rapidly increasing global uncertainty. The Armed Forces commissioner is one part of that response.

In any debate about our Armed Forces, I readily defer to the expertise and experience of noble Lords and Baronesses, and of noble and gallant Lords across this House who have served in the forces. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to them and thank them for their service to our country.

It has been a privilege to speak in this debate, and I look forward to many more opportunities to work with noble Lords and Baronesses from all Benches on many matters, and to contribute widely to the work of your Lordships’ House.