Armed Forces: Discrimination

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

Does the Minister agree that discrimination can take many forms? With the repositioning of Armed Forces personnel from Germany over the coming years, one area of concern may well be about the opportunity for their children to have access to the schools that their parents want them to go to and to get on the doctor’s list in the area that they wish. Does he agree that we may need to review the covenant, which is an extremely good initiative, to ensure that the families of Armed Forces personnel are not indirectly discriminated against?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a very good point about children’s education and doctors. This is an area that we are looking at very closely.

Armed Forces: Personnel

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to resolve the issues of operational tempo, pay, pensions and housing affecting Armed Forces personnel reported in the latest Armed Forces Pay Review Body report; and how they ensure that such steps are compatible with the Armed Forces covenant.

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, the opening words of the current military covenant say that,

“the whole nation has a moral obligation”,

to all those,

“who serve or have served in the Armed Forces…and their families”.

and that they deserve our

“respect and support, and fair treatment”.

That is the basis of my Question for Short Debate this evening. I ask myself whether the Government are fulfilling their obligation on the military covenant. It is an undertaking that goes back many centuries, indeed to the first great Queen Elizabeth—Elizabeth I—when an Act was passed which compelled parishes to contribute to the care of veterans. This nation has a very long history of seeking to give good support not just to our service men and women but to their families as well, both during and after their time in the services. The Armed Forces do not have the channels to speak out for themselves. They are not permitted to join a trades union, although if you look at the blogs and the chatter on the wires, you would see that many in the Armed Forces are now agitating that they should have a trades union. I make no comment on that.

They do not have the same right to speak freely in the public arena about their position as we do. However, in January this year, Catherine Spencer, speaking on behalf of the Army Families Federation, suggested that Ministers were close to breaching the military covenant. She said:

“I have to ask if the future has ever seemed more demoralising”.

I have always believed that you should look on the upside of things and not just the negatives. I have had a pretty awful weekend doing the research for this speech because I have become increasingly concerned about the state of our Armed Forces—I am talking about the personnel side, not the equipment, obviously. I recognise the need for austerity measures but my interpretation of the wording of the 2012 AFPRB report is that it expresses deep and serious concerns on the range of those austerity measures and how they are being applied to the Armed Forces.

I declare an interest as a former chairman of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body for six years. I am currently a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association and a trustee of the Armed Forces Pension Scheme. I have been in contact with none of them for this debate; I am not speaking to any external briefing. This is based on my experience.

It is a long time since I read a report from the Armed Forces Pay Review Body which has been so direct in talking about decreasing morale in the Armed Forces. The report states that the operational tempo remains “very high”. We know that, but that is almost a blanket for a number of problem areas: people not being with their families for as long as they should, going off on operations, coming back, going on training, not having the time that we have, in the military covenant, tried to ensure for them. Indeed, chapter 2.8 states:

“The 2011 Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey … indicated decreasing satisfaction … and declining morale”,

in the services.

Written and oral evidence from the services family federations highlighted uncertainty from those people about, for instance, the future of the pension scheme and the related transitional arrangements; changes to the Ministry of Defence allowances package; the impact on family life of the operational tempo; and the recurring theme of poor-quality accommodation and maintenance. These are ongoing issues that have been raised not just with the present Government but with the previous Government.

Those concerns are coupled with a pay freeze for 75 per cent of Armed Forces personnel for the past two years and a pay award for the remaining 25 per cent of just £250. In my view, the decision now to extend the pay restraint for a further two years, with no exclusions and a limit of 1 per cent, is having a cumulative and potentially damaging impact on the morale of our Armed Forces personnel and their families. We should be worried about that and we should try to address the issue.

A staunch pillar of the covenant going back generations has been the provision of housing, particularly in the Army. The Navy has a high proportion of its personnel who buy their own homes. To be in a community of forces families in similar situations—young families, often with Dad, or now sometimes Mum, absent for a lot of the time on operations—provides great mutual support. In the recent, successful television programme, “The Choir”, we saw how being there supported those young women. Just 45 per cent of Army personnel are buying or renting their own homes—two-thirds as many as the rest of us in the population. So the reasons for the drop in morale are obvious.

If this situation is to change, more help is needed. The home is at the heart of the family. It is somewhere we all retreat to when we have issues. The £8,500 from the current Long Service Advance of Pay Scheme to assist in buying a home is, in my view, insufficient; it was insufficient some years ago. I am not even sure whether it is still being applied, but the conditions for it are pretty onerous. It will not bring about the change that the Government—particularly the Minister—want. The Armed Forces Home Ownership Scheme is a good and very welcome initiative, but it hardly touches the problem. Just 93 personnel benefited from April 2010 to July 2011, so it needs a lot more resourcing. I accept that in a period of austerity that is very difficult; nevertheless, it needs more resource. With the number of personnel returning from Germany, what are their hopes for decent housing either within or without the services?

I read the review body report over the weekend, and from personal experience I know how much care goes into writing this report. The authors do not want to be negative when they write the report or cause problems by overspinning it, but the report brought home to me just how serious the concerns must be. Normally the authors would put it across very calmly and without exaggeration—and I believe there is no exaggeration in this report. So I was alarmed at the overall message in sections of it. One reference on its own would not be too concerning, but reference after reference to morale must lead to concern.

The review body deals with serving personnel, not veterans; the military covenant covers those serving and those who have served, and rightly so. The plight of some veterans is concerning and has been raised in this House over a number of years. It is not getting much better. Last year the Veterans Aid charity provided 19,700 nights of accommodation for former Armed Forces personnel. A disproportionate number of people who live on the streets come from the Armed Forces; we know that from debates that we have had in the House. The link with the poverty that those people live in must be of concern to us all.

The House has a reputation for taking a keen interest in Armed Forces personnel issues. I think that we all recognise the work and dedication that the noble Lord, Lord Astor, has applied to this. Nevertheless, there are still areas of criticism. I will bring together the list of issues of concern that contribute to a lack of morale. There has been pay restraint for two years for 75 per cent of personnel, yet they see in the Budget that people with plenty of money will get tax cuts next year. Job security is disappearing and career prospects have been cut, against a background of high operational tempo and the negative impact on family life.

Sometimes when I raise issues, for example on pensions, I am told that things cannot be changed because the consequences will bounce back on the public sector. I do not accept that as a rational argument. People in the public sector do not go off and give their lives. More than 400 of our men and women have lost their lives in Afghanistan up to March this year. It cannot be said that this is the same kind of job as working in an office or in a local authority. We need to look at this.

I am not asking for special treatment. I hope that on this occasion the Minister will not trot out the usual mantra that it is all the previous Government’s fault. I am asking that we honour the military covenant. It is our moral obligation. We are in serious danger of not meeting that obligation. Perhaps in his reply the Minister will kindly consider committing to remedy what people in the Armed Forces have lost. They face four years of pay restraint—a pay cut in anyone’s language—and a lack of job security and career prospects. We need a renewal of our commitment to the Armed Forces, and we need to carry out that renewal.

Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment. Although I did not take part in the debate last week, I listened very carefully to it. Arrangements had been made so that we did not vote last week; I expect that we will today on this amendment.

Following the Bill closely, I feel somewhat incredulous that the Government have not conceded in this area. This proposal is very much diluted from where we originally started. About three years ago I was privileged to sit in on a consultation, conducted by the Ministry of Defence, with the bereaved families of members of the Armed Forces. It was somewhat humbling to sit there and listen to them talk very constructively about how things could be changed. It would not help them, since they had already been in that situation, but it would help bereaved families of service men and women in the future and ease their lives with regard to delays in inquests. I gather that there is still a backlog of inquests.

I regard this as quite a simple amendment. It is about our duty of care to our service men and women. The covenant covers active service personnel and veterans, but what about service people who lose their lives and pay the ultimate price? What about the families they have left behind? This is a very small, light amendment. It does not call for huge expenditure. In my view, it meets what the whole ethos and spirit of the covenant to our Armed Forces personnel is really all about.

A number of colleagues have thanked the Minister for the changes in the Bill, which will leave the House very different from how it arrived. I give much of the credit for that to the Minister, to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and to the civil servants who have worked hard on this; I am not sure that these changes would have been achieved in another place. I ask why, on this last small request, which is really about the duty of care, the Government will not concede.

The amendment would not cost money and it certainly would not cost a lot of time. It would help the families and it would prevent us going back to the situation that we were in three years ago. It looks likely that multiple deaths will still be dealt with in Wiltshire, but inquests on single deaths in the Armed Forces look like going to a coroner who has probably never dealt with one before, which cannot be right. I give this amendment my wholehearted support, and hope that, if not through the Government conceding, then through a vote, we can get this into the Bill.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, the amendment would provide that the annual Armed Forces covenant would cover the operation of inquests as well as the subjects of healthcare, housing and education.

I do not wish to repeat the arguments already advanced in support of the amendment about why it is essential that there should be a specific reference in the Bill to the report covering the operation of inquests. Suffice to say that the decision not to proceed with the creation of the office of the chief coroner has strengthened the case. One of the roles of the chief coroner accepted on all sides of the House was the monitoring of investigations into service deaths and ensuring that coroners are trained to conduct investigations into military deaths. The chief coroner would also have had the responsibility to transfer inquests into military deaths to coroners in different jurisdictions to ensure that an inquest would be held by a coroner trained in military matters. The position now, as I understand it, is that investigations into single fatalities will still be transferred to the coroner closest to the next of kin. Inconsistency in quality of service and in quality of investigations for military families will therefore remain.

The amendment would not reverse or amend the Government’s decision in respect of the office of the chief coroner, but it would ensure that the issue of the operation of inquests—which, as has been said, remains a matter of considerable concern—is one that the Secretary of State has to report on each year in the Armed Forces covenant report, and thus is guaranteed to be the subject of continuing parliamentary and public scrutiny, challenge and debate.

In his responses in Grand Committee and on Report, the Minister—I think that he will accept this—has accepted that the operation of inquests is a subject that would be required to be covered by the Secretary of State in the Armed Forces covenant report at present but, his view is, not necessarily in future. The Minister argues that we currently have forces deployed overseas in military action—obviously, for example, in Afghanistan—which, sadly, continues to result in fatalities and consequential inquests, but that, hopefully, this will not be a permanent situation and thus there is no need, as there is with healthcare, housing and education, to have the operation of inquests included in the Bill as a required subject matter to be covered in the annual report.

I am sure that we all share his hope that the situation regarding fatalities will be transformed, but under current policy the current operations in Afghanistan will be continuing for just over another three years, and inquests are not always resolved and finalised quickly, as has been pointed out. Further, the anticipated position could well not materialise and we just do not know when or where our Armed Forces might be deployed overseas in the future. It is also the case that not all fatalities on active service occur overseas, as has been said, and there are fatalities in this country, including, in some years, some high-profile ones. It seems unrealistic to claim that, even though a highly sensitive issue such as the operation of inquests is one that the Secretary of State would almost certainly be expected to address for the next few years in an Armed Forces covenant report, such is our apparent certainty over what is going to happen in the highly uncertain and volatile arena of world affairs in the medium and longer term that we should decide now that it is not necessary to include any reference to the operation of inquests, along with healthcare, housing, and education in the Bill.

We have an Armed Forces Bill every five years—it is the one piece of guaranteed legislation that emanates from the Ministry of Defence, which is a department that generates very little new legislation. As a result, legislative changes and amendments that are required tend to be left until the next Armed Forces Bill. It may well be that experience of the processes and procedures provided for in this Bill for the annual Armed Forces covenant report will lead to some amendments being put forward by the then Government in the next Bill in just the same way as other parts of this, or previous Armed Forces Bills, may necessitate revision or amendment. There is nothing wrong with that, and there is likewise nothing wrong with the reference to the operation of inquests being included in this Bill as a subject matter that will be addressed in the annual Armed Forces covenant report, when we know it is an important and sensitive issue, because in what many might feel is the less than likely event of its ceasing to be an issue of importance and concern, it can be removed from the Bill by an amendment to a future Armed Forces Bill.

If the noble Baroness does not feel able to accept the Minister’s reply, and is minded to seek the opinion of the House, we will be supporting the amendment.

Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 6, 8 and 22, the latter of which stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Rosser. The Committee will be relieved to hear that I intend to speak briefly as it seems to me that the burden is very much on the Government to explain their position on these matters and give appropriate assurance.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, has raised some extremely serious issues on Amendments 6 and 8. I look forward to the Minister’s response to those issues. We will consider his response and judge whether to support those amendments on Report. However, I put down a marker to the Government that we will be looking to hear a very good response, otherwise we will probably support the amendments on Report.

I would like to make clear that the Opposition are not against people under 18 serving in the Armed Forces. We think it can be good for those young people and for the Armed Forces. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has just so eloquently set out, there must be the right safeguards. There are obvious safeguards to do with combat and other issues that we believe are in place—and of course we will be constantly seeking assurances that they are in place—but we think Amendments 6 and 8, as a basis for reporting, and our Amendment 22, tie the whole thing together.

We have been assured privately that there are mechanisms in place whereby all young people under the age of 18 are able to leave the Armed Forces at any point up to their 18th birthday if they wish to. That is an absolutely key safeguard but it is a safeguard with which we are uncomfortable. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, has hit the nail on the head: there is no process for informed consent. There is no clear process of audit. We believe that the proper way forward is an affirmative, signed statement by that young person that they wish to continue their service in the Armed Forces, and we will be pressing this point on Report unless we can be convinced by the Minister between now and then that such a clause is not required in the Bill.

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, I would like to speak to these amendments but this also gives me the opportunity of giving my sincere apologies to the Committee for not attending Second Reading. It was for family reasons and I did notify the Minister.

The accountability of any employer, including the Armed Forces, to young people is essential. In the Armed Forces I think it is even more essential. I do not know if the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has been to Harrogate. I have been on a number of occasions and I was extremely encouraged by the work being done there with young people. For the first time in their lives, for many of them, someone was taking an interest in them, investing time and money in them. In fact, if they left the services at 18 they would have been in a far better position to get employment than they would have been if they had been left in the streets where they were—and many of them told me that. When I met them, many of them told me that they would go on leave at weekends and they were quite often glad to get back because they realised what a cul-de-sac their life had been before they joined the Armed Forces.

There is a responsibility and I welcome this discussion, but I would not like to see attached to that any kind of assertion that the Armed Forces have been irresponsible with young people—because they have not. Indeed, I would also refer to A-levels. Many of these kids, boys and girls, go into the services because they have no chance of getting any further education; it is not within their sights. Their parents do not encourage them, the community they live in does not encourage them, and if you said, “You’re coming in here and you’re going to go away with A-levels”, they would run a mile; they would not join up. It is very important that we handle this sensitively. We have an accountability and maybe including a reference to it in the covenant report is the way to deal with it. I would certainly welcome that, and would welcome not tying youngsters in so they feel they cannot get out if they find it is not for them.

However, it would be wrong in Committee for it not to go on the record that the training that the young people get in Harrogate is good and gives them confidence in life they would not have got elsewhere. One of the bugbears I remember having as chair of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body some years ago was that the services did very good training but they did not keep a record of it; they did not have accreditation that could be used outside in employment. That has changed considerably—a lot of progress has been made—but if we could make sure that the investment that goes into the youngsters and what they give back was recorded and was available, it would help broaden their lives but would also recognise more fully the good work that the Armed Forces do with young people.

War Widows’ Association of Great Britain

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, for bringing this important issue forward for debate today, the 40th anniversary of the founding of the War Widows’ Association. I declare an interest as the vice-president of the War Widows’ Association, about which I feel extremely privileged and humble.

Debates are the bread and butter of what we are about in this House. Having been a Member for just under 20 years, I could never feel as privileged as I do today to be standing up and taking part in this debate. This morning, we had a very moving service at the Guards Chapel. It brought home to everyone there what amazing women are part of the War Widows’ Association and how they have stuck together like glue. The saying “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” really applies to those ladies and, as the chaplain said, they know how to enjoy themselves as well. One of their great assets is that they have never portrayed themselves as victims—the majority were widowed during the Second World War—but they include among their ranks many younger widows because of recent operations. They portray themselves and act as proud individuals—proud of their spouses and what they did for their nation, and indeed for their paying the ultimate price. They are prepared to stand up and be counted and do what they can do to help each other. They have done that for many years, which is an enormous credit to them.

The widows have many ways of expressing that support for one another. This morning was one of them; the annual remembrance activities in London are another. They also have their annual get-together. I have been privileged to go to one or two—it is not just a day but several days. They all meet up, look after each other and catch up on news, too—that is very important. And then on the Saturday evening, when the hair comes down, the frocks go on and the band starts up, you really start to ask, “Are they really that old?”. There is also the arboretum. The previous Government strongly supported the role of the War Widows’ Association, and I am delighted to say that the current Government are building on that. We are privileged to have with us today the noble Lord, Lord Astor—without sparing his blushes. Along with his fellow Minister in the MoD who is responsible for veterans’ issues, he is very committed to supporting what the war widows are doing.

The magazine Courage—a great title; it has been going for years—provides another way for them to keep in touch with each other. I was reading earlier today a newsletter dating back to 1987. It talked about how you could win a Marks & Spencer’s voucher for the ladies. Last year, the association was able to give one to each of its members.

The War Widows’ Association is also a democratic organisation, having office and committee elections. It does that because it wants to try to make sure that it makes progress on behalf of the people whom it represents. That includes lobbying Parliament. This House has always given good support to the work that the War Widows’ Association has done. We all remember Baroness Strange, who was a wonderful advocate of the association. In fact, it was through her that I got involved with speaking in the Chamber on issues affecting war widows. She was ably followed by the current president, the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, who was at the service this morning and who is present everywhere whenever there is an event. She gives marvellous representation for, and support to, this amazing organisation.

However, the work goes on and there is still a lot to achieve. The noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, mentioned the covenant. The legislation will be coming to the House of Lords in the coming months and I can assure the Minister—he would be disappointed if I did not—that we will be on our feet talking about issues affecting the war widows and making sure that they get their fair share of both representation and adjustments in the covenant where needed.

There is one area—the noble Viscount touched on it—that I would ask the Minister to address, if he can. It is a difficult area because of the legislation. The Data Protection Act is a barrier to reaching the newly widowed wives and husbands of serving personnel. We have to find a way around that because the law is being an ass in this case and bureaucracy is preventing us from giving the comfort and support that those women and men may well need.

As has been mentioned, the organisation started in 1971 and came out of the case of a war widow, Laura Connelly, who came back from Australia. At the service this morning the association prayer was sung—I do not intend to sing it, your Lordships will be relieved to know. It was written by a war widow, Mrs Kay Todd, and even today, 40 years later, it encompasses what the organisation is all about. It goes like this:

“We will recall

Our yearly tribute placing

The hopes and dreams that slowly had to fade

We will go on

The lonely future facing

Knowing too well the sacrifice you made.

We will forget

The loneliness and worry

The pain of parting and the tears we shed

Forget as well

The aching and the longing

Keeping our memories of the times we shared.

We will remember

Head held high with pride

We will keep vigil

With our men who died”.

The war widows have kept faith with that commitment.

Armed Forces Covenant

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, we will certainly keep all the other departments up to speed on this. As the noble Lord said, for years Governments have talked of supporting the military, tending to focus largely on what it spends on equipment. I can assure the House that the Armed Forces covenant is about our obligations as a society to our military personnel.

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement from the Minister today. It is a pity that it had to go through a process in the Commons whereby the Government did a U-turn. It would have been much better not to have put themselves in that position from the beginning.

There are three documents. We have not had much time to read them, but I welcome the Statement. In many respect, the documents raise more questions than they answer. The Minister referred to the Armed Forces Bill, and we will discuss that in depth in this House, but my concern is that the content of the covenant is worthy of a full and analytical discussion in this House, quite apart from the Bill. Knowing how committed the Minister is to the welfare of our personnel, I invite him to agree with me that it would be appropriate to discuss the documents we have been presented with today in a proper debate in this House in advance of the Armed Forces Bill coming before us.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point, and I will certainly take it up with the usual channels. These are very complicated publications, and there is an awful lot to absorb. That probably cannot be done just by a briefing in this House or in the Ministry of Defence, so I am very happy to consider that.

On the timing, Members of another place will have an opportunity to debate the Armed Forces Bill in the Committee of the Whole House on 14 June, and the Third Reading will be on 16 June.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Friday 12th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, perhaps I should start by declaring an interest as a former chairman of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body and a current vice-president of the War Widows Association. I shall concentrate my remarks on personnel issues in the Armed Forces. I regretted very much that the review, although referring to personnel, did not refer in as much detail as did the 1998 review to the issue of personnel, their careers and training and family matters.

This is the first major debate on defence that I can recall when we are missing Baroness Park of Monmouth, who was a substantial and ongoing supporter of personnel in the Armed Forces. Although we were on different sides of the political divide, we had no differences at all in the commitment and understanding, which she had, of the Armed Forces. I welcome very much the important contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Brompton.

We reflect today on the report of the loss of another one of our service personnel in Scott Hughes. That family this weekend must be trying to come to terms with the heartbreak of the loss of one of their family as a result of service to the nation. But we should bear in mind that it is not what we say about personnel that matters, but what we do and what the record shows that we have done as politicians, as government and ex-government, in support of personnel. I was considering that when I read the report in June of the Prime Minister’s commitment to have a military covenant made a legal document. I welcome that, but I would not welcome it too much until I see what is going to be in it, as it is not what you say but what you do.

The previous Government have taken quite a lot of criticism. It has become almost a mantra to blame them for all our ills today, and only history will put that record straight. As for the military covenant, as we are now calling it, the previous Government did a lot on school admissions and introduced for spouses credits and national insurance so they did not lose out when they went abroad with serving personnel. We also had major changes on pensions. For the first time, we treated widows as members in their own right of the Armed Forces pension scheme. Those kinds of improvements and changes make it clear that you mean what you say.

I welcome the Government’s decision to double the operational allowance for service personnel in Afghanistan, but there is much that I do not welcome. The strategic defence review of 1998 substantially covered personnel and carried through. I recall it being introduced at that time by a new Government who were looking at defence strategy and the previous Government having the record for the previous three years of giving Armed Forces personnel a split reward. That did not meet the recommendation of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, but cut it in two, which had an impact on their pay that year and an ongoing impact on their pensions from the state when they retired. That is not meeting the military covenant.

In this review, paragraph 2.B.3 states:

“We cannot shield the armed forces from the consequences of the economic circumstances”.

Why not? They are in a very special position. They are prepared to give up their lives—the ultimate price that any individual or a family can pay. Why does a group of people who are by no measure regarded as highly paid have to face those consequences? For me, the question is: do the Government intend or have it in mind, first, to change the remit of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body—a very independent body—and, secondly, possibly to stage the pay award which may be agreed and recommended by that body in a few months’ time?

Paragraph 2.B.7 says that there will be,

“a different approach to … accommodation”.

I welcome the Hew Strachan review and hope that we will be able to have a debate on it, but we know that accommodation and its quality—or lack of it, in many areas—was a thorn in the side of the previous Government, as it certainly is in the side of this Government. What does that imply regarding a change in accommodation? Certainly, that is, again, a poor area for service families. Servicemen and women go off to war, on operations or training, and their families are left living in some pretty awful conditions, much of which has been improved but with much still to be done. The previous Government invested an awful lot of money in improving accommodation.

I shall mention two other areas. Last year, we spent a lot of time in this House discussing the Coroners and Justice Bill. Within that, a number of us across the House—including the Minister on the Front Bench today—supported the changes that we sought regarding the inquests for Armed Forces personnel. The Bill was amended to provide for a chief coroner. It addressed the inquest issues that we had, about inquests taking as long as two years in some cases, and made them much friendlier to users and their families. The Government have now announced that they are abolishing the chief coroner’s role under the Public Bodies Bill which they have now brought forward. The British Legion said—I will leave it at this—that it thought that was a betrayal of what was agreed across parties by the previous Government. I want to thank the noble Lords on the Conservative Benches opposite who helped us to get those changes through, so I do not understand why the Government have now gone back on that.

My final point is in regard to the war widows. On the cusp at the end of the previous Government, it was agreed—but we never had time to implement it—that the pre-1975 war widows would not lose their meagre pension when they remarried. In fact, if their second husband died they had to go through a means test to get that pension back. It was agreed that that would finish and that they would not lose their pension. The cost was speculative, but we would be dealing with a very old age group. We were possibly dealing with £80 million over three or four decades—as low as £1 million a year, possibly, or as high as £4 million. Now the Government have said that they are not going to do that. I link that with the point which my noble friend Lord Hutton made in his admirable maiden speech about the change in pensions.

The military covenant has to be one which is enduring, which goes through the good times and the bad without impacting unfairly on our Armed Forces personnel. I close by asking the Minister whether, when we have the Hew Strachan review during the latter part of this month, we can have a debate on that. Can we also have a debate specifically on personnel in the Armed Forces, rather than the situation which we have today? I understand and welcome it, but this is about the whole review and with the concentration on the hardware and on a lot of issues which, while touching on the Armed Forces personnel, is not about their overall well-being or how we treat them. I would very much welcome indeed the opportunity to have an in-depth debate on those issues.