Armed Forces Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this Bill in. It is interesting to speak on a Bill that goes directly back to the Glorious Revolution. I return to the substance of this particular piece of legislation, and particularly Clause 2.

The covenant is something that we all discovered a few years ago, in varying degrees—or had it put in those words to us—in the background of a nation that found itself knee-deep in two wars, when there were considerable problems with the Armed Forces and how they were organised at the time. To be fair, in large part those problems have been addressed in recent years. It is very reassuring that we finally have something that we can refer to as a framework for dealing with the covenant in implementing it, but it is only a framework and a suggestion. When the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, was speaking, I found myself agreeing totally with him; he spoke in exactly the terms in which I was going to suggest we spoke about this. Indeed, the same bit of Kipling had occurred to me, to be perfectly honest. I would have expressed it not as elegantly by saying that we have a nasty habit of addressing the future as a tarted-up version of today.

A report to Parliament under the current circumstances that was critical of what the Armed Forces were doing would be an embarrassment to the Government for at least a week. It would mean that the entire political village would shake with indignation and rage and would be open to attack from outside—quite rightly. However, what if we have a decade when we do not have anywhere near the same level of commitment and casualties? The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, is no longer in her seat; it is a long debate, and I do not hold that against her. But I remember having to discuss Question after Question—the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, was there as well—when a list of casualties was read out. If we remove that, how much energy and attention can we focus on these issues and this report?

We have heard many things that would help this report. My noble friend Lord Lee really put his finger on it when he said we had to make it apply across Government. That is one of the best and most constructive suggestions I have heard on a Bill in a long time, and I only wish I had made it. To address this matter properly, we must try to put in more infrastructure in the way this report reverberates throughout the political system and Parliament. If we do not, it is going to struggle.

My noble friend said I would talk about the implementation of this provision. I suggested that I do that, because most of my political background has come from the area of disability rights and campaigning. Here is an area where we have a great deal of law, and it is generally thought that you need to be lucky, persistent or rich to get the best out of the system. Law does not guarantee it. The great joke in the disability world is that if you are going to be disabled and successful, choose your parents correctly. The general consensus is that having a lawyer and a journalist as parents is a very good way in which to get the best out of your legal entitlements. We have to get something that does not go back to that type of implementation. This is another way forward. We must do something that generates enough steam to make sure that it matters—it is not just a rough day for one Minister, it is that rough week for the whole Government. We have to try to implement that and going across the other departments will be a way forward.

To address the covenant itself, I think that there should be a fourth element in here, in proposed new subsection (2)(a). I would like to see some form of training for those who are leaving the services, for how to access the outside world and civilian life. That point of interface is where it is quite clear, with the best will in the world, that all the Armed Forces have effectively failed. They have not covered that gap. It is quite common, when you go from two structures—looking at other bits of government, including education and the care services—that you can go through dozens of examples of this where that interface is badly handled by various departments, when the Chinese walls kick in. We have to try to address that in some way; it may not be in the Bill, but we must get the Government to talk and think about the culture here.

The problems with ex-servicemen are probably greatly exaggerated in certain fields, but they exist, when they find themselves adapting to outside life. Indeed, why do people join the Armed Forces in the first place? Possibly they like a structured environment and, if they do not, they have probably got used to a structured environment when they are there. How we handle that change is something we should address, and this Bill would be an opportunity to do so.

I hope that my noble friend will give us some indication of how the Government’s thinking is going in dealing with these practical matters. I salute the Government for finally making sure that we make the covenant real and more tangible, but this is only the first step. Making sure that we can take the next step easily and develop it would be a real benefit to future Parliaments and anybody involved in this, because if we do not, we will have this stop-start approach which ultimately leads to legislation and legal action, because it is the only way one can do anything. We want to avoid that whenever we can, but this is a good start, it builds on good practice and I wish it well.