Armed Forces Bill

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

Further simplifying the reserve liability is fundamental. It enables us to create a clear and modern framework that is easier to administer and explain, and it will enable the Ministry of Defence to plan more effectively for workforce requirements and defence readiness. The amendments will also ensure greater compatibility with a new workforce model—zig-zag careers, as we are calling it—provided for by clause 31. We want to encourage a much more flexible working approach that mirrors civilian society and allows people’s careers to be more flexible, but it is difficult and complicated to calculate exactly when the 18-year liability should start for people who move between the regulars and reserves, and potentially back again.

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

I welcome the introduction of the strategic reserve in the Bill, but I would like clarity on how it will be paid for. Will it be via separate funding or will it come from the money already allocated to pay for the active reserve in the MOD budget?

[Al Carns]

As the hon. Member will know, there is a multitude of different reserves in the system, with different liabilities, different pay and different pensions. Indeed, I have often described it as a spaghetti junction of different policies that have been layered on top of each other over the last 60 years. This is the first move to simplify that, as well as the funding mechanisms and recall processes for it. By removing the 18-year liability, we simplify it at 65 years, which creates our ability to zig-zag those roles within the military so that people can leave, rejoin and leave again depending on their personal circumstances and the liability available within the armed forces.

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[Mr Dhesi]

I commend my hon. Friend’s intervention and join her in extending my best wishes. It is welcome that the Government have published draft guidance on the legal duty, and I am pleased that it includes an explanation of what it means to pay “due regard” to the covenant, because witnesses to our inquiry told us that that phrase can sometimes seem ambiguous. I hope the Minister will consult widely with those affected by the legal duty to ensure that the guidance meets their needs. Our Committee will be watching closely to see whether the expanded covenant is being delivered and is making a positive difference for our armed forces community.

The creation of a new defence housing service in clause 3 is also welcome. I am pleased that the Government have made it a priority to modernise the defence estate and have committed £9 billion over 10 years to support that work. The challenge for the Minister will be to ensure that the funding is delivered as promised; in the current geopolitical climate it is not hard to imagine that the Government might come under pressure to divert scarce resources in response to some crisis. I hope the Government will uphold their commitment to our service families, come what may.

The new powers in clause 4 to counter uncrewed devices are sorely needed. My Committee’s inquiry “Defence in the Grey Zone” examined the many kinds of hybrid threat posed by hostile states, including drones. The armed forces need the power to deal with such threats, to show our adversaries that their hybrid tactics will not work against us.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

The other day I had the opportunity to meet the Ministry of Defence Police and their chief constable at RAF Wyton in my constituency. I was impressed by the counter-drone capability that they are now equipped with; it is vastly in excess of what Home Office policing teams now have, and it is a simple solution to provide the counter-drone capability that we should have at all our bases. I urge the hon. Gentleman to put pressure on the Minister to roll out those new CPM-Wilson and CPM-Watson counter-drone weapons to all our bases, to ensure that that capability is as widespread as possible.

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for that intervention. The Defence Committee had the good fortune to view some of those counter-drone measures during one of our visits, and I fully concur with his views.

The measures on service justice are focused on better supporting victims of serious offences. As the Minister knows, this subject comes up time and again in the Defence Committee’s regular sessions on women in the armed forces, and I am pleased that it is a focus of the Bill. It is only right that the Bill brings protections available in the service justice system, such as domestic abuse orders and stalking protection orders, into line with those available in the civilian system.

The new reporting requirements and the victims’ code are also welcome changes, but it has been our experience as a Committee—as it was for our predecessors—that new initiatives do not always have the impact we would hope for, because they take place in an environment and culture that does not take the needs of victims as seriously as it should. I know that we cannot legislate for culture, but unless there is proper training on the measures in the Bill, and a message from leaders throughout defence that things must change, it is likely that our Committee will continue to hear stories from victims who feel let down by the service justice system.

The Bill also aims to update the way that defence uses reserves, and I welcome clause 31, which will make it easier to move between regular and reserve forces. That will support more flexible career paths, allowing people with military expertise to move into roles in industry, and vice versa. The changes to call-out and recall conditions in clauses 32 and 33 should help to strengthen the capacity of our reserves. Reserves are a key component of our nation’s readiness; showing that we are ready to respond to aggression deters our enemies and lets us respond more effectively, if needed. I hope that these measures will soon be followed by further steps to improve our readiness, including the promised defence readiness Bill, which is needed sooner rather than later.

While the measures in the Bill will undoubtedly improve our readiness, they are focused on the strategic reserve only. The strategic defence review stated an ambition to increase the active reserve by 20% when funding allows. We do not know how and when that will be achieved. The measures in the Bill are a good start, but there is more work to do.

In conclusion—I see you are giving me a stare, Madam Chair—I believe the Bill will make a positive difference to the lives of those who serve in our armed forces, and I will certainly support it as it continues to make progress through the House.

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[Mr Bailey]

The right hon. Member makes a powerful point, and I agree with him entirely. That is why it is so important we make sure that the armed forces covenant works. The covenant will have to do a lot of work and heavy lifting, just as it will in relation to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Huntingdon, but we will have the legal power and we will have recourse to those Departments. We hope to hear from Ministers today that they will press home the legal advantage they now have in that regard.

Finally, this debate reminds us that the Armed Forces Act 2006 was itself forged in the context of its time. It brought together a number of separate pieces of legislation and created a framework suited to an era in which the size and scope of the armed forces were reducing and many of the strategic assumptions underpinning our national security appeared to be settled. The measures in this Bill are all welcome and necessary, but they remind us that much of the heavy lifting now sits elsewhere. Questions about mobilisations, reserve integration, military aid to the civil authorities, the legal protections offered to service personnel acting on behalf of the state, and wider national resilience sit largely beyond the scope of the Bill, yet those issues are becoming increasingly important as the strategic environment changes around us. As legislators, we have a responsibility to ensure that the legal frameworks governing our armed forces continue to evolve alongside those changes. This Bill makes important improvements, but it should also encourage us to think carefully about the work that remains to be done and ensure that future legislation is ambitious enough to meet the realities of the world as it is, rather than the world as it once was.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I wish to speak to new clause 5, which I tabled. I start by thanking all Opposition Members—both in my party and across four other parties—who have supported this amendment. Let the record show that not one person on the Labour Benches supported it.

We often speak in this House about veterans, our shared respect for those who have served and how best to support veterans in their post-military life, be it with careers, housing, mental health or simply the frailty of growing old. With that shared sense of society repaying our collective debt to those who have served must come the moral courage to do the right thing that we expect those who have served to show.

During my Army career, I had the privilege to serve alongside and command soldiers from all over the Commonwealth—Australians and Canadians, South Africans and Jamaicans. As a support weapons platoon commander, a quarter of my anti-tank platoon was Fijian. As hon. Members may expect from a fine rugby playing regiment such as the Duke of Wellington’s, it was unbelievably competitive to get a spot on the wing. I therefore know well the courage and the sacrifice shown by our Commonwealth personnel not only today, but alongside me on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and during operations across the globe long preceding that. We owe those men and women the right to make a life in the country they have risked theirs to defend.

Over four years ago, in April 2022, the previous Government implemented a visa fee waiver for those who have served in the UK armed forces. That waiver also applied to eligible veterans who were yet to regularise their immigration status. Having campaigned for that long before I became an MP, it was hugely welcome to see the playing field levelled somewhat for Commonwealth veterans. While that was a welcome first step, I personally felt that it was not enough.

We in this Chamber often recognise the sacrifice and the challenges of those families left behind when service personnel deploy. Being a military spouse or child is not easy. This situation is made even harder for the family of a Commonwealth service member, because while we waived the fees for serving personnel in 2022, we did not extend the right to the immediate family and dependants of that service member. That means many Commonwealth veterans are saddled with significant visa fees if they wish to stay in the UK as a family after leaving the armed forces.

From 8 April this year, when the cost increased once again, the base fee for applying for indefinite leave to remain is £3,226 per person. To put into context the speed of that increase, when we waived fees for service members just four years ago, it was £2,389 per person—a near £1,000 increase. That is just for indefinite leave to remain, not citizenship. In the US armed forces, a non-US citizen can achieve full US citizenship upon discharge for the price of the admin fee—just a few dollars. A service member, their spouse and two children now potentially face a cost of just shy of £10,000 for the right to live in the country they have risked their life to defend. I defy anybody to tell me that that is fair.

It is not until the 12-year point that personnel become entitled to a resettlement grant of £15,047. The purpose of the resettlement grant is to do precisely what it says: to give people a head start, be it through a trade course, a deposit for a house or the funds to set up an entrepreneurial new business. None of those options is available to those who need to spend the majority of the grant on just obtaining the right to live in the country.

What on earth are we doing? Why are we fleecing those who have served this country, saddling them with a five-figure burden? The Royal British Legion and Poppyscotland lead the charge on this campaign. They have pushed for these changes consistently. They highlight that in delivering this manifesto pledge, the Government would fulfil their obligations under the armed forces covenant by removing those disadvantages and barriers to family life.

Going into the 2024 general election, the Conservative manifesto looked to correct this issue. As part of our pledge to veterans, we announced that a Conservative Government would:

“extend the visa fees waiver introduced to cover Commonwealth personnel, to include their direct dependants.”

The Labour manifesto, too, made that pledge, stating:

“We will also scrap visa fees for non-UK veterans who have served for four or more years, and their dependents.”

So where are we with that? I have raised the question on a number of occasions. In November 2024, I asked the then Veterans Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), what the timetable was for delivering that manifesto pledge. I was told:

“We are working on that. It is in the manifesto, and it will come out in due course.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 22.]

In June 2025, during the Armed Forces Day debate, I asked the then Armed Forces Minister, the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), if he could provide an update

“on the work being done to waive visa fees for families and dependants of our Commonwealth personnel”.

He told me:

“We have a manifesto commitment to deliver that. The Defence Secretary has spoken to the Home Secretory about this, and our officials are in dialogue about it. I hope that the Minister for Veterans and People, who looks after this area, will be able to announce progress in due course. The hon. Member and I share a strong sense that there is a wrong to be righted here, and those people who serve our country for a good period of time should be able to settle here. I think progress will be made, but I recognise his interest in that happening.”—[Official Report, 26 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 1290-1291.]

That was a year ago.

On 5 January 2026, the new Veterans Minister told me in a written answer that the Government are

“working closely with the Home Office to deliver this commitment”.

She went on to state:

“it is not possible at this stage to provide an implementation date”.

In April, she informed me:

“This Government is committed to waiving visa fees for non-UK veterans”.

In total, I have asked the Government for an update on the progress of the implementation of their manifesto pledge seven times and we are no closer to an implementation date after nearly two years than we were when the Government came to power.

I am not seeking to apportion individual blame here. Having spoken to Ministers individually, including the two on the Front Bench today, I do not doubt that the Defence Front Bench wishes to implement this policy, but there is clearly something that is causing it to stall, be that the Home Office or the machinery of government. There is an opportunity here to drive this policy forward. We should bear in mind that the Ministry of Defence does not even collate the information regarding the number of ILR applications submitted by family members of service personnel. It has literally no idea of the impact the failure to deliver this policy is having.

After two years with no timetable for implementation on the horizon, I have little confidence this is a priority on the MOD’s to-do list. I appreciate that the Government measure working flat-out in months, but this could be measured in continental drift. It simply does not appear to be a priority for the Government. However, my greater fear is that rather than do the right thing today, the Government will churlishly and spitefully vote against new clause 5, “because politics”. Not one Labour MP signed the new clause, despite every single one being asked twice. The Government have whipped their MPs not to support it, just as they will whip their MPs to vote against it.

A vote against new clause 5 is not just a vote against the Labour manifesto that each Labour MP stood on. It is a vote against our veterans. It is a vote against those who have risked their lives to defend this great nation. It is a vote that tells Commonwealth personnel that this Government do not have their back, that joining our armed forces will still see them treated as second-class citizens, with limited options post service. Those Labour MPs with a military presence in their constituencies should ask themselves how they will spin it to the service member who has to pay £10,000 to live here with their family, instead of putting down a deposit on a house or launching a business. They should ask themselves whether, for the sake of playing politics this evening, it is worth holding somebody else back.

[Mr Calvin Bailey]

I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for giving way. He is making a powerful speech, the majority of which I agree with. Does he recognise, however, that the armed forces covenant places a legal responsibility on all Departments to remove those barriers and impediments to service life? As a service member, I engaged with the Royal British Legion and Cobseo from about 2017 to try to address those barriers and impediments and failed to do so numerous times under the previous Government because of the nature and approach of the Home Office in addressing these problems. Perhaps the problem we have today is not whether the Department wants to address the issue, but a wider cultural problem. Would the hon. Gentleman join with the all-party parliamentary group to ensure that we apply and enforce the armed forces covenant in the way it is designed in order to achieve the outcomes on which we both agree?

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I do not disagree. I recognise the point that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is making and his passion for delivering what he describes. I am a member of said all-party parliamentary group, and I am happy to push in order to try and get this across the line. I also recognise the politics of this. Although I am not sure his party will welcome him apparently somewhat throwing the Home Office under the bus in this instance, I recognise that there are complexities around the ability to deliver from a Home Office perspective. I know that is something that the Conservatives encountered when we were in government, and I imagine it is very much the same situation for the Government now.

I insist that new clause 5 is still a good new clause. It would come in the right place within the Armed Forces Bill. I recognise that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is trying to give the Government some wiggle room to get out of voting for the new clause this evening, but I am convinced that it should be voted on, and that we should push it forward in order to put some pressure on the Home Office.

[Mr Calvin Bailey]

I just want to amplify what this means for our service people, as I know there is a slight conflation of issues here. As our service people approach the end of their time in service, if they are not a UK passport holder—the majority of those people may be Americans and not Commonwealth personnel—they will not have access to work and to credit during the final six months of their service. This impediment has been in place for decades; as I said, I fought to change it through Cobseo when I was in service, and we are trying to deal with it again now. That is why this matter is broader than the hon. Gentleman’s new clause.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I agree that it is a broader topic than simply covering Commonwealth veterans and their family members from those same Commonwealth countries. There are a number of personnel living here are UK personnel but have spouses and children who may be from overseas, and the same rules apply to them. I do not disagree with the hon. Member; I think we are very much on the same page on a number of issues—it is literally just the technicality of politics that is getting in the way.

We are squeamish when it comes to discussing immigration. No party has yet demonstrated that they have the right answer, but on this specific element of the debate, it is very simple: no matter how high a bar we set for the right to live in this country—whether that is for key workers or high net worth individuals—those who have risked their lives to defend the freedoms that we enjoy deserve to settle here with their families without penalty. That should always be above that high bar. At the heart of our security are the men and women who serve and risk their lives for this country. That is in the Labour manifesto. I urge Government Members to do the right thing today and support new clause 5.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am proud to be a Labour and Co-operative MP for a Cornish constituency with a strong military heritage. More than 30,000 Cornish residents have served or are serving in the armed forces. That is more than 6% of the population—nearly double the national average.

I am also proud to have sat on the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill. The Committee heard evidence from a number of witnesses, who informed our report, and I am pleased that the majority of the recommendations have been taken forward by the Government. Government amendment 9 deals with paragraph 19 of the Committee’s report:

“We heard concerns that the Bill’s definition of a local authority to which the Covenant will apply does not capture all kinds of local authority”.

Our report recommended that the Government consider whether the definition of “local authority” needs updating. The Ministry of Defence agreed with that conclusion, and an amendment has been tabled, but unitary authorities and single foundation authorities still do not appear to be specifically included in the definition, so I would like the MOD to go back and look at that again.

I am very proud to have contributed a clause to the Bill. Clause 30, which introduces schedule 4, incorporates the proposal in my ten-minute rule Bill to bring Royal Fleet Auxiliary service personnel within the remit of the new Armed Forces Commissioner. I hope this is the start of work on building recognition of the RFA, and on retention and recruitment within the service, which is so valued and valuable.

I would like to speak about housing. I made my home in Cornwall because my then husband was posted to RNAS Culdrose. I know that many families move for the same reason. Even over 20 years ago when I experienced it, military housing was not in a good condition. In 2023-2024, two thirds of service family accommodation was in such a poor state that it was not fit for purpose. Clearly, that is not acceptable.

That is why I am so pleased that this Government are creating the publicly owned defence housing service and providing it with a 10-year investment of £9 billion. That will benefit over 12,000 houses in the south-west, many of which are in Cornwall, by bringing them back into public ownership after the disastrous privatisation in the mid-1990s, after which they degenerated.

I am pleased that the consumer charter includes commitments to improve military housing, such as a better move-in standard, more reliable repairs and a named housing officer. We discussed this on the Select Committee, and our report highlighted that, as private contracts for customer service, maintenance and repairs are to remain in place until 2029, there is a need for robust mechanisms in place to hold contractors to account for their performance.

I turn now to the modernised accommodation offer, which has been promised for many years and would extend entitlement to service family accommodation to those in long-term relationships and those with shared parental responsibilities. It is true—I know it—that a lifetime of service can put a strain on relationships, sometimes culminating in divorce or separation, and in 2024, 5,000 personnel had responsibility for non-resident children. They should have a home where their children can come and stay or live with them some of the time. That was identified as a long-term objective in the housing strategy, but I appreciate that military families will want clarity. The Select Committee brought that up, and the MOD acknowledged it, saying that it will be a commitment for the Department.

Our Committee recommended that within six months of its establishment, the DHS should outline a timetable for widening entitlement to SFA to include those in long-term relationships. The MOD supported the call for the DHS to clarify and accelerate those plans to better reflect the realities of modern military life.

The Committee’s report also covered single living accommodation—in paragraph 52—and recommended that the MOD commit to a costed plan for improving the condition and maintenance of SLA within twelve months of the review’s completion. The MOD agreed with that recommendation too, which is positive.

The Bill extends the armed forces covenant to cover central Government Departments, the devolved Administrations and, hopefully, all councils, as well as new policy areas such as employment and social care, so that no one falls through the gaps. This is very welcome, and I know that the covenant has had a positive impact so far, particularly in Cornwall.

Witnesses who gave evidence to the Select Committee raised the need for clearer guidance and support, and highlighted lack of consistency in implementation of the covenant across the country. Public bodies are not always clear about what is expected of them.

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[Al Carns]

I thank all Members who have spoken today for their contributions and for upholding cross-party support for our armed forces. The Bill takes significant steps to improve the conditions of service life, and renews the contract between our nation and those who serve. It delivers on a manifesto promise to extend the armed forces covenant to every area of Government—from three to 12 policy areas. We will go further, backed by a £9 billion defence housing strategy, to build, renew and repair tens of thousands of military homes. We are modernising and improving victim support and ensuring that the service justice system can protect the victims of the most serious offences from further harm. We will expand the reserve pool by changing the maximum age limit at which some personnel can be recalled, so that we would, if needed, be able to call on some of the most experienced volunteer reservists. These are significant but necessary changes to boost preparedness in an era of ever-increasing threat.

I will now address some of the major issues highlighted in the debate, starting with new clause 5. I have served all over the world with Gurkhas, Fijians and broader Commonwealth troops. They serve our country, and they serve it with honour and courage. The very least we can do is help them and their dependants by scrapping visa fees after four years of service. This is not about politics or a difference of opinion; it is about language and bounding the commitment in legislation in the correct way.

There is already a settlement fee waiver in place for serving personnel, introduced in 2022, to recognise the burden of settlement fees at the point of discharge for those who have served for six or more years or been medically discharged due to their service. However, that fee waiver did not extend to dependants or recognise serving personnel who become eligible for settlement after four years of service. That is why this Government have committed to scrap visa fees for non UK veterans who have served for four years or more and their dependants, and Home Office and Ministry of Defence Ministers are working closely together to deliver it; my hon. Friend the Minister for Veterans and People met the relevant Home Office Minister just recently. We remain firmly committed to this manifesto pledge and will deliver it fully.

I understand the intention behind new clause 5 and the desire to make progress quickly. However, as drafted, it would not clearly achieve the intent set out in the explanatory statement, which appears to be narrower. While the explanatory statement refers to “spouses or children”, the new clause itself appears to waive fees for serving personnel, previously serving personnel and “their family members”, using broad and undefined categories that would create significant uncertainty and a lack of clarity about who precisely was within scope. It also contains no clear link to length of service or a time limit after discharge. Taken together, that risks creating a broader and unclear statutory entitlement with unintended consequences, rather than a targeted and coherent measure that families and dependants can easily understand.

In addition, section 68 of the Immigration Act 2014 provides that fee exceptions should be set out in secondary legislation. By introducing a fee exception into the 2014 Act, new clause 5 would cut across that existing statutory framework and reduce clarity in the fee structure by creating an alternative mechanism for controlling fees. The Government are committed to delivering the manifesto commitment in full, and it is important that Ministers retain the ability to determine the appropriate scope, eligibility and delivery approach so that it is implemented fairly.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I recognise that the Minister wants to deliver this manifesto commitment as much as I do. However, after two years we have made little progress, mostly due to the machinery of government within the Home Office. This new clause was tabled some time ago, and the Government have had ample opportunity to refine the detail of it in order to make it acceptable to be voted on this evening and passed by the Government. Why have the Government taken no steps to work with me to get this measure across the line, given that it is a manifesto pledge of the Government? Can he also give some indication of when the pledge will be delivered, if the Government choose wrongfully to vote against my new clause this evening?

[Al Carns]

We need to move this legislation forward in the right manner and as fast as possible. I recommend that the hon. Member continues to push this case. My hon. Friend the Minister for Veterans and People and I have heard him loud and clear, we have heard the armed forces community loud and clear, and we are committed to delivering this in line with the intent.