King’s Speech
Baroness Crawley Excerpts(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Baroness Crawley
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as follows:
“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, on behalf of your Lordships’ House, I thank His Majesty the King for delivering the gracious Speech. I am grateful for the privilege of opening today’s debate on the Motion for an humble Address. As this is a King’s Speech debate, I begin by uniting us all in praise of Their Majesties’ incredibly successful state visit to the United States just a few weeks ago. The visit saw the words of His Majesty the King bring members of the House of Representatives to their feet again and again, where his wise words, sharp humour and powerful messages resonated across political divides.
I will use this occasion to set out how the Government will continue to drive forward the UK’s national interests, tackling pressing global challenges to make Britain safer and more prosperous. The only way to do that is by bringing all the tools at our disposal to bear. We have to be truly integrated: from diplomacy, development and defence to soft power and economic strength. The crisis in the Middle East is just the latest example of why the Government are taking this approach. Families and businesses across the UK, and countries across the world, are grappling with the fallout from the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. We are working tirelessly across all fronts, leading efforts for a lasting diplomatic breakthrough to restore freedom of navigation without tolls and to get the global economy moving again.
We have urged Iran to allow shipping to flow freely through the strait and to progress a diplomatic pathway. As my friend the Foreign Secretary did in a call with Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi on 8 May, we have used our convening power to bring together more than 40 countries to channel collective pressure to reopen the strait, engaging intensively with the US, our partners in the Gulf and European capitals. We have bolstered our defensive capabilities in the region as part of co-ordinated regional defensive operations in line with international law, and we are working internationally to respond to the impacts of the crisis on the world’s poorest. That includes at the Global Partnerships Conference that we co-hosted this week, where we gathered developing countries around a new approach to international partnerships and discussed how to alleviate the impacts of the crisis on food, fertiliser and fuel. That is because our efforts must be integrated and the effects of these crises around the world are connected to what we are doing at home.
Sadly, this approach is essential, given that we face a world more riven by conflicts than at any time since the Second World War, where tools of economic integration are being used as weapons of geopolitical conflict and where competition between the US and China shapes our world. We see this with the threat posed by Russia to the UK and wider European security: an aggressive, expansionist Russia that deploys hybrid threats and information warfare against us and our allies, and exports interference and instability. Just as in the previous Parliament, this Government have taken every opportunity to stand with Ukraine and apply pressure on the Kremlin’s war machine. The UK’s total military, economic and humanitarian support for Ukraine amounts to £21.8 billion, and the UK has sanctioned over 3,000 individuals and entities since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
In this Parliament, we will remain stronger than ever in our support to Ukraine, confident in the cross-party commitment that Ukraine’s fight is our fight, and steadfast in putting pressure on Russia. That involves sustaining our international leadership that has brought together partners and unlocked practical commitments through the coalition of the willing, including for the future deployment of the multinational force in Ukraine. Faced with Russia’s aggression and growing global security threats, last year the Government committed to the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War. To do that, we took the decision to reduce the development budget to 0.3% of GNI by 2027, but we remain just as committed to tackling global challenges in a new and modernised way, which I will return to shortly.
Turning to other pressing conflicts, Palestinians and Israelis desperately need peace. We need to deliver phase 2 of the 20-point plan, prevent Gaza getting stuck between peace and war, and stop Israeli settlement expansion and settler violence, which is at an all-time high and in flagrant breach of international law. Last year, this Government took the historic step of recognising the State of Palestine, to help keep the two-state solution alive, and we will continue to ensure that our international work is consistent with Israel’s lasting security, with Palestinian self-determination and with achieving peace in Lebanon.
These are messages we delivered through the UK’s presidency of the UN Security Council in February, a presidency we also used to put the spotlight on Sudan, as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, including the women and girls who have endured unimaginable ordeals of sexual violence. We will sustain our focus on Sudan, building on the Berlin communiqué that followed the international conference we co-hosted in April, which brought together 55 states, secured £1.3 billion of funding to save lives, and renewed the diplomatic push for a ceasefire and political resolution of the conflict.
Sadly, Sudan is not the only example of a conflict overlooked. In March, I visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo and saw the consequences of years of conflict, including on survivors of sexual violence, the desperate need for clean water, emergency healthcare, and food and nutrition assistance. But I also saw the courage of those delivering front-line services, the expertise of local health professionals and the ingenuity of Congolese entrepreneurs. To break the cycle of conflict, the world must get behind those people. That means providing humanitarian and peacebuilding support. The UK is delivering life-saving care: from trauma surgery and support for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, to clean water and emergency food. This means calling for those responsible for the violence to stop and supporting multilateral efforts towards sustainable peace.
Crucially, it means supporting long-term opportunity for people in the DRC through strengthening business links and supporting investments, whether that is setting up a new UK-DRC Chamber of Commerce, which I launched in March, or expanding access to finance for SMEs through British International Investment’s $55 million commitments to the DRC’s banking sector. As we discussed in a Question earlier, Ebola in the eastern DRC is a major threat, and we are working with the World Health Organization and Africa CDC. So far, we have allocated up to £21 million to the region, and I will be going to the Congo next week.
This Government are putting into practice a new, modernised approach to international development, one that reflects the scale of the global challenges that we face today and the very different geopolitics compared to two or three decades ago. International systems are threatened and humanitarian responses, already strained, are being stretched to their limit. While some are turning away, the UK with our partners is doing things differently. The countries that we work with want modern, respectful partnerships rooted in shared interests.
As my noble friend Lord Collins’s consultation on Africa last year set out so clearly, all of this means that we need to forge new alliances and work with developing countries in a different way. We have a new approach, one that channels aid to a more focused set of priorities over the next three years and moves us beyond being a donor to focus on spurring new investment, providing the expertise that enables countries to build up their own capacities and that helps countries and communities thrive without aid. It is essential that we streamline an inefficient, insufficiently co-ordinated system that places an unnecessary burden on partner countries.
This was at the heart of this week’s global partnerships conference, which brought together Governments, international organisations, civil society, businesses, technology and philanthropy. We must draw on the strengths that everyone has to offer: the richness of innovation that diverse coalitions bring to even the toughest problems. Working together collectively, respectfully and through mutually reinforcing partnerships is the only way that we will tackle the global challenges of today. Together, we agreed a new compact: not a typical negotiated text, but a synthesis of what partners have told us across its themes of finance, technology, and shifting the power: a shared commitment to working faster, more openly and in true partnership in the decades ahead. That will provide the framework for us to deliver a new way of working, a more responsive international system and improved financing. This will better meet the priorities and aspirations of partner countries and tackle the shared challenges of a new era, to forge new ties with growing economies and trading partners of the future.
Irregular migration is one such challenge, exacerbated by conflict, poverty and climate change. We have secured the return to France of over 600 migrants under the UK-France returns treaty; we have reached agreement with six African partners on improved processes to return those with no right to be in the UK; and we have deployed our new sanctions regime to target 55 individuals and entities to help break the business model of criminal gangs. But we need to go further, together with others, to raise our collective ambition on migration, supporting the security of our borders, the fabric of our democracies and the protection of those who need it.
Across all the priorities I have set out, there is one constant: we cannot meet any of these challenges alone. Our partnerships and alliances remain crucial to global growth and security and to our own growth and security. We will work through groups such as the G7 and the G20 to build and strengthen these alliances, collaborating to address issues of global importance that impact every household in the UK—whether that is working through the G7 to support Ukraine, keep the pressure on Russia and respond to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, or promoting policies to support growth, jobs and productivity through the G20. As His Majesty the King outlined in his Speech to Parliament, our G20 presidency in 2027 will place the UK at the forefront of driving global growth and stability, which is essential for the prosperity of working people across this country.
The world today is more fragile, contested and interconnected than ever. The breadth and complexity of the challenges we face underline why we must bring to bear all the tools at our disposal, integrating our diplomacy work with our efforts on development, defence, soft power and economic resilience. Only through this approach will we make progress. So, over our new parliamentary Session, the Government will seize every opportunity to advance our interests and uphold our values, using all the levers we have across government to strengthen our alliances, build new coalitions and shape solutions to the shared challenges we face. There is much for us to discuss, so I look forward to hearing your Lordships’ contributions and working with noble Lords to make the UK a stronger, safer and more prosperous place.
War Widows Pensions
Baroness Crawley Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Crawley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in resolving the issues faced by those war widows who were required to surrender their War Widows Pension due to marriage or cohabitation.
Baroness Crawley (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con) [V]
My Lords, the Government continue to examine alternative methods to see whether we can mitigate the impact on those survivors who remarried or cohabited before the introduction of the pensions-for-life changes in 2015. Much progress has been made and the issue remains a priority for the Ministry of Defence, but it is very complex.
Baroness Crawley (Lab) [V]
I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer, but I am very disappointed. I am sure that she herself is tired of having to repeat it. It is shameful that 200 war widows are still waiting for their pensions to be reinstated. In the last five years, 100 widows have, sadly, died while waiting. What has happened to the plan that was meant to have gone from the Secretary of State for Defence to the Treasury, and when will we see a timetable for meaningful action in this matter?
Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I pay tribute to her commitment and passion on this issue and I understand her frustration. It might help her if I explain the nature of the complexity. Quite simply, it has been the policy of successive Governments not to make retrospective payments by government to individuals. That has been an established position and I think that many Members of your Lordships’ Chamber who have been Ministers will understand that. It means that, although I, the Secretary of State and the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff all personally want to try to find a solution to this, we are not able to act unilaterally. We are investigating a number of options, but as yet none of these has been confirmed as avoiding the challenges to which I have referred.
War Widows’ Pension
Baroness Crawley Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Crawley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the announcement by the then Prime Minister on 8 November 2014, what plans they have to reinstate the war widows’ pension for those widows who were required to surrender that pension due to marriage or cohabitation.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)
My Lords, in 2014 the then Prime Minister announced that changes would be made to the rules of the war pensions scheme and armed forces pensions scheme from April 2015 onwards. The amendments allow survivors’ pensions to be paid for life—known as pensions for life—for widows who remarried or cohabited on or after 1 April 2015. These changes were applied on a prospective basis.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister. As a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association I am extremely disappointed that after five years, the Government are still dragging their feet on reinstating these widows’ pensions. We are talking about 200 to 300 war widows whose former partners served in the Falklands, Northern Ireland and the first Gulf War, among other theatres and whose only course of action today, if they want their pension reinstated, is to divorce and remarry their present partners. How bonkers is that? Will the Minister, despite what she has said, take back to her department our call that this has to be resolved once and for all?
Baroness Goldie
I thank the noble Baroness and pay tribute to and thank the War Widows’ Association for its excellent work. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her role within the association. I realise that this is an emotive issue that provokes many passions and I sympathise with and understand that. The noble Baroness will be aware that the difficulty with applying retrospective treatment to the provisions is that the policy of successive Governments—not just this one but previous ones—and across departments has been that such benefits cannot be applied retrospectively. I make it clear that in no way do the Government seek to diminish or disregard the support provided and contribution made by the ladies to whom the noble Baroness refers. My problem is that I have a very hard nut and I do not have a hammer to crack it.
D-day: 75th Anniversary
Baroness Crawley Excerpts(7 years ago)
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Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord Reay, and look forward to hearing from him many times in the future, especially on rural broadband connectivity.
We approach this 75th anniversary of D-day in sombre mood, not only for the anniversary itself, with its huge significance for the war and the scale of sacrifice involved, but because, as our own Lords Select Committee report, UK Foreign Policy in a Shifting World, put it:
“We are living through a time of worldwide disruption and change”.
The report, debated on 21 May, reminds us that today’s trends include populism, identity politics, nationalism, isolationism, protectionism and mass movements of people. It goes on to warn that the global balance of power is shifting and fragmenting in a way not experienced since the Second World War, undermining the rules-based international order that was so properly set up at the end of that war. Therefore, while we commemorate and reflect this week, we must also attempt to learn some of the painful lessons of the war, as the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, said. It is my deep and personal belief—some might say heresy—that, for instance, going ahead in a cavalier fashion with Brexit is not really learning those lessons, but may be flying in the face of them.
The veterans of the D-day landings and the bloody battle for Normandy that followed are in their very old age now and fewer are able to return to the beaches of Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah. To see the 250 veterans preparing to sail from Portsmouth with their families this week was an absolute joy and I am very pleased that the Minister will be accompanying them. Our gratitude for their participation in the most ambitious military operation that the world has ever seen is boundless, as it ensured our present freedom and democratic way of life, as noble Lords said. That democratic way of life is so easily and so often taken for granted.
On the matter of veterans, I was contacted recently by the family of a surviving World War II veteran, Harold Mason, from another theatre of that war. Harold joined the Royal Navy aged 17 and is a survivor of the Arctic convoys. His extraordinary personal bravery in rescuing Norwegian men, women and children in one incident from the Arctic water is yet to be officially recognised and I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, as Minister of State for Defence, for agreeing to discuss Mr Mason’s case with me even though I am aware that a resolution would be extremely difficult and that the family’s MP, Mr Philip Hollobone, has already worked on their behalf in this matter.
While we remember and honour our veterans today, it is also important to remember our war widows. I was delighted and humbled to be asked this year to become a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association under the wonderful presidency of the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, and I follow in the footsteps of the late, much-missed, Baroness Dean, who would definitely have been speaking today. The War Widows’ Association is a most extraordinarily brave and feisty group of mainly women and some men, who should be considered veterans by anyone’s measure. I was very moved to read the recollection of one of the war widows, Bernice Lois Bartlett, of the day the letter came to tell her that her husband Harry had been killed in 1944. She said:
“I just didn’t expect it. The letter came, the ordinary blue envelope and I put it on the dresser. I didn’t open it because it was the children’s teatime … and I thought, get them done, put them to bed, then I’ll read my letter. Of course I didn’t realise what the letter contained. You just don’t think it’s going to be you”.
No doubt that scene was played out time and again across the country and, unfortunately, it still is.
The WWA was originally set up to fight for the rights of those widows and especially to put right the fact that their war pension was being taxed by the Inland Revenue. Once that campaign was won, there was a further push to ensure that war widows did not lose their pension if they remarried or cohabited, and that was resolved in 2015. However, those 300 or so war widows who were affected before 1 April 2015 are still cut off from their pension. Will the Minister meet me in coming weeks to discuss this unresolved and very important issue for the War Widows’ Association? I am testing his patience. Like buses, he does not see me for months, and now I am asking to see him twice in one week.
Finally, I am thinking today of Bob Maloubier, a French SOE agent who I was proud to have known and call a friend. Bob died in 2015. He was awarded the DSO in 1945. He came to lunch here in the Lords as my guest not long before his death and was a famous Anglophile. Bob was twice parachuted into France and carried out a series of daring sabotage missions with fellow SOE agents, including the courageous Violette Szabo, whose daughter Tania is a good friend, whom he attempted to rescue from the Gestapo. In the early days of the battle for Normandy, Bob Maloubier was parachuted back into France after being injured and went on to play his part in weakening the German response to D-day. Bob and all the brave SOE agents should be in our thoughts today because their fearless work as saboteurs behind enemy lines throughout the war did so much to bring about the final victory.
As the allied veterans return to the beaches of Normandy one last time this week, they will know that the gratitude of a grateful nation and indeed of the free world is with them. What is less known is whether we, who have not had to face war on such a scale, are paying proper attention to the shifting world we live in.
Royal Navy: Staffing
Baroness Crawley Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Earl Howe
My noble friend is absolutely right. The maritime and, indeed, the RAF reserves are often used to provide individuals and small teams for specific roles, and their training is designed to integrate them with the regulars. In fact, my noble friend may be interested to know that there are reservists already serving on the offshore patrol vessels, supporting regulars, at the moment.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, as I am sure the Minister is aware, Plymouth—a city I know very well—is home to 700 Royal Marines. Speculation is rife in the city about a reduction in their numbers and their locations. What comfort can the Minister give those 700 Royal Marines about their future in the defence of our country?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I hope that the comfort that I was able to give the House in last week’s debate on the Royal Marines will have reassured many in Plymouth that there is no question of scrapping the Royal Marines. What is going on at the moment is a national security capability review, which is looking at numbers and capabilities and seeing how we can invest and spend our growing defence budget in the most intelligent way. But the ability to transfer personnel and equipment from ship to shore will remain highly relevant to the Royal Navy’s capabilities.
Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017
Baroness Crawley Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, welcome this timely debate and thank the Minister, who has great respect in the House, for setting out the Government’s thinking and spending on present and future UK defence strategy.
Although I was a Government defence Whip for several years in the last Labour Government and recently co-chaired the Parliamentary Labour Party’s defence committee, it has been some time since I took part in a major defence debate in your Lordships’ House. As I focus again on our domestic and international responsibilities, I am reminded how like the 1980s it seems out there and how the Cold War did not really go away—yet how our response is still inadequate.
As Yeats put it in his poem “The Second Coming”,
“the centre cannot hold …
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity”.
The new and old forces ranging against the West today, and against NATO in particular, have a new strength and determination. Our major ally, the US, despite its recent announcements on NATO and defence spending, seems very unsure of its value base when it comes to its global responsibilities. The enfant terrible of cyber and hybrid warfare often appears out of control.
I welcome our emphasis on NATO this afternoon. Sweden, one of the shining examples of a modern democracy, is bringing in a new military service obligation, which is being imposed on all men and women there, which allows us to see the anxiety it has for its borders in the face of the emerging Russian aggression. That anxiety is prevalent also in the Baltics, Poland and elsewhere. I welcome the deployment this past weekend of the first of 800 British troops to Estonia, and I know that we all wish them well in their extremely important work there. Could the Minister go into more detail on the discussions the Secretary of State for Defence has had with the new US Defense Secretary, James Mattis, on how we can reaffirm our joint commitments to our NATO allies in the face of Russia in its new bastion mode and in the face of President Trump’s suggestion that he may not come to the aid of a NATO ally unless it has paid its dues?
I welcome the progress, albeit slow, that is being made by NATO members towards meeting the 2% of GDP target for defence spending, agreed in Wales of course in 2014. I understand that five countries in NATO now meet that target, while 10 meet the 20% pledge on major equipment and research. However, like my noble friend Lord Touhig, I would like to press the Minister on his response to the defence committee’s findings that Britain can claim to meet the 2% target only by including areas such as pensions that were not previously counted—certainly not during the last Labour Government. Can the Minister tell us what defence expenditure would be if we used the same accounting rules that we did in 2010? Does the Minister agree that we would have more credibility when urging our NATO allies to meet their spending commitments, were we not barely scraping over the line ourselves? Surely, as other noble Lords have said, the proportion should be whatever is required to allow the UK to respond to the threats of today.
Those of us who grew to adulthood under the chill of the Cold War have seen our hopes for a stabilised and globalised peace grow ever more threadbare in the last few years. Whatever is required should be the only limit to our spending. As someone who grew up in Plymouth—that great naval city—I was particularly pleased to see that the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that Plymouth will be the centre for the Royal Marines. I ask: what additional naval expenditure will come the way of Devonport in the near future?
However, does the Minister feel that there has been an adequate government response to the defence select committee’s report of last November, which concluded that there was a woefully low number of Royal Navy warships? We could not possibly miss out on that position, as we have with us the noble Lord, Lord West, who manages wonderfully and creatively to get the Royal Navy into most Questions in Oral Question Time. As we look to the future, it is still the Government’s planning assumption, I take it, under the Joint Force 2025 of the SDSR 2015, that there will be a maritime task force centred on the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier, with F35 Lightning combat aircraft and consisting of 10 to 25 ships and 4,000 to 10,000 personnel.
While still on naval matters, I for one was content with the vote in the House of Commons last year enabling the Government to take the Successor submarine programme forward into the manufacture phase. The Labour Party remains committed to a minimum credible independent nuclear deterrent, delivered through a continuous at-sea presence. Will the Minister update the House on the various investment stages that will replace the Vanguard class of submarines?
I add my heartfelt thanks and gratitude to the dedicated RAF crews who are working around the clock to defeat Daesh in Iraq and Syria. We all wish success to the coalition forces in the battle to liberate Mosul. I know that the Government are doing what they can to encourage, once Daesh is routed there, a more lasting peace that has political reconciliation between Sunni and Shia people at its heart.
Finally, we come to Brexit. We seem to be doing that a lot. As we leave the European Union—and with it the EU Foreign Ministers’ monthly meetings, the daily meetings of EU ambassadors and diplomats and the thousands of meetings that form the EU’s foreign affairs co-ordination at the United Nations—what detailed planning is going on to set up a meaningful structure for exchange of information, intelligence and assistance between the UK and our EU partners on common positions in international policy? I will give an example from when I chaired the Women’s National Commission at the UN some years ago. Then, the UK always met with other EU countries to form a common EU position—in that case on women’s rights—before meeting with other UN members and coming to UN decisions on issues such as abortion rights, FGM and girls’ education. There was always a European common position—usually the most progressive position at the UN. It would be foolhardy in the extreme for this country to lose its influence and partnership in EU decision-making on international matters. However, at present I am not optimistic.
Do noble Lords think that once the Brexit deal is done, the whole of NATO as a force for democratic solidarity—here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord King, for whom I have a lot of respect—will be stronger, weaker or just the same as it was when the referendum was but a twinkle in a badly misguided Prime Minister’s eye? This is a very bad time to create friction with our allies. I see a hard Brexit as little more than organised friction, as we can be sure President Putin knows only too well. Brexit is a geopolitical windfall for the Kremlin and all who despise the West. While I wish the Government well in their future defence policy, we are all aware of how rocky that future is going to be.
Armed Forces Bill
Baroness Crawley Excerpts(14 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Crawley
My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to our Armed Forces and the extraordinary commitment they show in protecting both this nation and, when necessary, people of other countries. Our Armed Forces have been particularly heavily engaged in operations over the past few years and a large number of personnel have made the ultimate sacrifice while serving their country. Many more have suffered life-changing and very challenging injuries. We have nothing but the greatest admiration and respect for the courage and enormous bravery of our Armed Forces.
An Armed Forces Bill, as we have heard, is needed every five years to provide the legal basis for the Armed Forces and the system of military law we have here in the United Kingdom. I thank the Minister for his résumé of the provisions of the Bill and for putting at our disposal his department’s very helpful briefing. I remember fondly assisting with the 2006 Act, although my role and that of the Minister were reversed. The Bill has been delayed, as we have heard, because, despite a clear commitment by the Prime Minister in June last year that the military covenant would be enshrined in law for the first time, that commitment was not delivered when this Bill was first published in December 2010. Instead, the Bill simply provided for the Secretary of State to make an annual report to Parliament on the implementation of the covenant. The Royal British Legion was of the view that the Bill, as it then stood,
“looks like the beginnings of a Government U-turn”.
In early May this year proceedings on the Bill in another place were delayed by the Government; and in mid-May the Prime Minister, under heavy pressure to honour the commitment he had given the previous June, stated that the principles of the military covenant would now be incorporated in the Bill.
Of the need for the covenant there can be little doubt. Our Armed Forces face significant redundancies, with the first round of 11,000 being announced in just less than two months’ time. It appears that there may not be a shortage of applicants in some areas, including among senior Army officers. Money, of course, may be one factor, in the light of pay freezes, as well as a view that more could be earned outside the services. A feeling among some that our Armed Forces are now involved in managing decline and that promotion will be more difficult to secure does not help. Some financial benefits are being cut, or their scope reduced, which may only encourage some to leave. The continuity of education allowance has been restricted, the overseas allowance cut and travel, fuel and expense allowances reduced. Pensions for Armed Forces personnel will no longer be increased in line with the retail prices index, but instead in line with the consumer prices index, which, it is generally agreed, will result in smaller pensions. This is a blow to all concerned.
Of course, there will equally be a great many service personnel who revel in life in the Armed Forces, the camaraderie it provides and the justifiable feeling of doing a worthwhile and very skilled job. They will want to stay and will hope that they will not be made redundant against their wishes and have to face a return to civilian life, particularly when finding alternative employment is difficult, to say the least.
The concept of a military or Armed Forces covenant is not new. It has existed for many years as an unwritten commitment between the state and the Armed Forces, recognising that, in response to the considerable sacrifices made by service personnel, the nation has a duty to acknowledge that fact and to accept a long-term duty of care towards service personnel and their families. In 2008 my Government produced a Command Paper entitled The Nation’s Commitment: Cross-Government Support to our Armed Forces, their Families and Veterans. This was the first cross-government strategy on the welfare of Armed Forces personnel. The paper set out a series of cross-departmental measures to improve welfare provision and support. The need was also recognised to make the best use of the support available through other organisations and charities.
The main recommendations in the paper related to education, welfare support, healthcare, housing and compensation. Armed Forces advocates were established within government departments to deliver on the principles and commitments of the service personnel Command Paper. In addition, the external reference group of the Ministry of Defence, now renamed the covenant reference group, with representatives from across government, the devolved Administrations, major charities and the service families federations, monitored implementation of the Command Paper’s recommendations and reported annually to the Prime Minister. The 2008 service personnel Command Paper and associated cross-government strategy on the welfare of Armed Forces personnel led to the doubling of compensation payments for the most serious injuries and the doubling of the welfare grant for the families of those on operations. It also led to better access to housing schemes and healthcare, offered free access to further education for service-leavers with six years’ service and provided more telephone and internet access for those in Afghanistan. It is important to demonstrate the foundation on which the covenant that we are looking at today was laid.
The Bill sets out to enshrine the Armed Forces covenant in law. Its scope does not go as far as we believe it should, but it is progress in the welfare of our Armed Forces and service families and we shall support it. It represents a considerable step forward from the Government’s line in the first sitting of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill in another place in February 2011, when they stated that:
“The covenant is a conceptual thing that will not be laid down in law”.—[Official Report, Commons, Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, 10/2/11; col. 21.]
We will want to discuss in more detail the covenant and the principles on which it is based as the Bill progresses through your Lordships’ House, not least what will and will not be in the Government’s proposed annual report on the covenant and who will finally determine its contents.
As an Armed Forces Bill comes before us only once every five years and is normally the Ministry of Defence’s only Bill, it tends to cover a range of issues requiring primary legislation that have come to the fore since the previous Bill, as the Minister has said. This Bill is no exception. We support the increased powers that it gives to the service police, including the provision on access to excluded material to assist in investigations. We also welcome the measures to enhance the independence of the service police and to introduce a provost marshal to ensure that investigations are conducted free from unacceptable interference. Other measures in the Bill which we support include those ensuring that the service police disciplinary systems are compatible with, and complementary to, the European convention, to protect members of the service community outside the United Kingdom; measures to strengthen the independence and impartiality of service complaints procedures; and of course moves to update regulations to protect prisoners of war detained by UK forces.
However, there are other government decisions beyond the Bill which are not welcome, and are seen to run contrary to the principles behind the Armed Forces covenant. One I have mentioned already, namely the decision to link Armed Forces pension rises to the consumer prices index rather than the retail prices index. The impact of this move will disproportionately affect members of the Armed Forces and their families, since they rely on their pensions at an earlier age than almost anyone else. A 27 year-old corporal who has lost both his limbs in action will lose out on £500,000 in pension and benefit-related payments. The 34 year-old wife of a staff sergeant killed in action would, over her lifetime, be almost £750,000 worse off. I hope the Government will rethink this issue.
Another government decision which seems incompatible with the Armed Forces covenant is the intended demise of the chief coroner’s office. That office would give service families the right to the best possible investigations and military inquests when faced with the death in action of a loved one. The Government should think again, particularly in the light of the significant vote on this matter in your Lordships’ House.
Our service personnel can be called on to work unlimited hours, in highly dangerous conditions, putting their lives on the line. Living conditions for them can at times be very basic and extremely tough. They can be separated from their families for months on end, and be required to move around from one remote location to another. While we support the moves the Government have made to place the Armed Forces covenant in the Bill, we have concerns about decisions the Government have made, or appear to be on the verge of making, which we believe are incompatible with the spirit and intention of the covenant. I hope the Government will think again on these important matters.
In conclusion, we will certainly want to pursue many of these issues during the more detailed consideration of the Bill in the weeks to come. Overall, we welcome the Bill, which is now in considerably better shape than it was when it started its passage in another place last year. It is important that we take the opportunities that the Bill provides to continue to improve the lives of our esteemed service personnel and their families.