Armed Forces Bill

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley]

My Lords, five years ago when this House considered the Bill that became the Armed Forces Act 2006, it was, as the Minister has reminded us, a completely new Bill. It replaced rather than amended earlier single-service disciplinary Acts. Every word and clause of the Bill before the House reflected the intended Act. A number of amendments to the text were agreed—I moved some of them. In due course, what we had been considering became the 2006 Act. This time, the Government have reverted to the traditional quinquennial approach. This Armed Forces Bill renews and updates the existing one. But I find it a right mess doing it this way compared to the approach in 2006.

This Bill is over 50 pages of detailed changes to the 2006 Act. It inserts a section here; it substitutes one section for another there; it amends a subsection; it inserts new words; it repeals or revokes bits, parts or all of earlier legislation; it introduces new schedules or changes to existing ones. The insertions, substitutions, repeals et al can be numbered in dozens, not just an odd one or two. Some are described as minor; some are listed as miscellaneous. There is a raft of them entitled “Other amendments”. I can see no obvious reason for differentiating in this way, unless it reflects the preparation of the Bill and new thoughts and ideas as they occurred to the drafters. The Bill before the House is little more than a whopping great marshalled list of amendments to the wording of the 2006 Act. Is it just convention that the updating of the 2006 Act must be done in this muddling way? If it were possible, I would have tabled an amendment which proposed that the Bill before the House be presented with all the changes, substitutions, amendments et cetera carried into a new Bill for debate and consideration in Committee and on Report. This legislation, dealing as it does with disciplinary matters, should be comprehensible to service personnel and not just an Act cobbled together and worded for lawyers and other legal experts.

The Bill before the House does introduce one new and untried requirement. Clause 2 is entitled “Armed forces covenant report”. Its wording is to be inserted after Section 359 of the 2006 Act as new Section 359A. Section 359 of the 2006 Act is one of a number of sections towards the back of the Act listed as “Miscellaneous”. Section 359’s title is eye-catching: “Pardons for servicemen executed for disciplinary offences: recognition as victims of First World War”. They were veterans, but is this the best place that the drafters can find for the covenant section? Is this not an unfortunate juxtaposition for the requirement to report on the covenant, a covenant to which the Prime Minister and many members of the Government have given their strong support? I invite the Government to think again about the placing of this amendment. Appearances can be important. These sections would be listed next to each other in the table of contents of the Act. What about Part 14, titled “Enlistment, terms of service etc”? Why not insert here a new heading—“Armed Forces covenant”—and put the wording of Clause 2 after Section 339 of the 2006 Act, numbering it Section 339A?

Clause 2 is titled “Armed forces covenant report”, which clearly indicates that an Armed Forces covenant exists. While I accept that to introduce a statutory description of a covenant would be neither practical nor sensible, it is still important to have an understanding or non-statutory description of the reach, the length and breadth, as it were, of the matters considered to fall under the heading of the Armed Forces covenant. The Secretary of State, Dr Fox, described it in the other place as,

“fundamentally a moral obligation on the Government, the nation and the armed forces. It is an agreement between the armed forces and the whole nation, not just the Government”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/1/11; col. 47.]

This is pretty woolly. What has been or will be agreed? The MoD internal briefs published on 16 May 2011—The Armed Forces Covenant, to set the tone for government policy, and The Armed Forces Covenant: Today and Tomorrow, to detail current actions being taken to deliver the covenant—are both helpful. They should be widely distributed because they will provide useful benchmarks for judging outcomes in the future.

Clause 2 requires the Secretary of State to report to Parliament each calendar year, on issues of healthcare, education, housing and any other fields he may determine. However, none of these seems to be his direct responsibility so far as veterans who have left the services are concerned. How then is he to produce an authoritative report on fields for which he has no responsibility? He must seek advice from other government departments, from devolved Administrations and other regional or local authorities. He is required by Clause 2 to draw attention to those who may be disadvantaged in comparison to other non-military persons. On whose judgment must he rely? Does he exercise his own judgment? He is expected to have an opinion according to Clause 2 and to respond to that opinion if it covers some who are disadvantaged.

While not wishing to disparage the Government’s good intentions, it is most important that the report and their reaction as a Government to what it says are well thought out and presented. It will not be just the annual report but the responses to and actions taken on the report that will really matter. Who will be held responsible for that?

I have argued before that placing responsibility for veterans who have returned to civilian life on the shoulders of the Defence Secretary is not reasonable. Responsibility for veteran affairs reaches out in many different directions. The previous Government recognised this. Three years ago Command Paper 7424, a White Paper, introduced valuable and far reaching arrangements focused on the Cabinet Office and an external reference group, now renamed the covenant reference group. This group reports to the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary annually.

I have proposed before that this arrangement could be strengthened by transferring the Minister for Veterans to the Cabinet Office, where he would be better placed to gather and consider the various fields of interest to veterans and the ways in which they are supported in the wider community. I was interested to learn from the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester—who I am glad to see in his place—that when he was invited by the then Prime Minister to become Minister for the Disabled, the noble Lord insisted he should not be placed within any of the normal government departments because the interests of the disabled and their support spread right across government. Veteran support too spreads across many fields. Why not look after them in a manner akin to the immensely successful way that the disabled were first supported some 40 years ago? It is an approach I strongly urge the Government to consider. It would give practical meaning to their support for the Armed Forces covenant.

Finally, on Clause 5 about the appointment of provost marshals by Her Majesty the Queen, what arrangements will be required if an individual provost marshal fails in his or her duty and has to be removed? Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to explain.

I also echo the strong feelings about the need for the chief coroner, which have been expressed before many times in this House and have my strong support.