Armed Forces Bill

Luke Akehurst Excerpts

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

[James MacCleary]

I understand exactly what the right hon. and gallant Member is saying, but failures in the civilian justice system—which, as he rightly observes, has a big backlog of cases—should not be a reason for reducing people’s confidence about coming forward with complaints. We know from the continuous attitude survey, to which he has referred, that the main reasons given by personnel for not making a written, formal complaint continue to be not believing that anything will be done with the complaint, and believing that it might adversely affect their career. It would encourage more people to come forward if they knew that the complaint would be dealt with in the civilian system. The amendments I have spoken to do not unpick the Bill, nor do they reverse its intentions.

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

So that I can understand, could the hon. Gentleman explain slightly more carefully why he is proposing to remove the choice that the victim has? They can say which of the two systems—the service justice system or the civilian justice system—they have more confidence in. Why would it be better for the victim if that choice were removed, and they had to go down the civilian justice system route?

[James MacCleary]

As I am sure the hon. Member is aware, this was a recommendation of the Atherton report, and there was good reason for it. That inquiry took a lot of evidence on this subject, and the view was that this change would increase confidence. Serving personnel bringing complaints against senior officers may feel pressure to keep their complaint within the service, and so may not receive the justice they need. We have looked at the findings of the Atherton report and agree with them, so we have included that recommendation in the amendments that we tabled to the Bill.

We ask the Government to go one step further and convert general commitments into specific duties, and provide the structures, standards and oversight that will determine whether those duties are genuinely met. Our armed forces are held to the highest standards in everything they do; it is not unreasonable to expect the same of the legislation that governs how we treat them. I hope that the Government and this Committee will take these amendments in the constructive spirit in which they are meant, and will support them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I speak in support of amendment 88, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire). It would require the Secretary of State to review the way that former service personnel are communicated with about their pension entitlements, and I support that wholeheartedly.

I want to use this opportunity to raise again in this Chamber an injustice that goes far deeper than communication; it goes to the heart of what this country owes its veterans. I want to share with the House, for the sixth or seventh time, the story of legendary Eastbournian Pauline Cole. Pauline was a staff sergeant, and served this country with distinction during the conflict in Aden in the ’60s. As a direct result of her service, she suffered solar skin damage, resulting in cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder. After years of tribunals, the Government recognised her sacrifice and awarded her military compensation in the form of a war disablement pension.

Before receiving that compensation, Pauline had been in receipt of £76.96 a week in pension credit. After receiving that compensation, her pension credit collapsed to just £9.23 a week. That is because military compensation is considered income for the purposes of calculating pension credit, even though compensation awarded in a civil context is disregarded from such calculations. Indeed, military compensation is disregarded from universal credit calculations, but not from pension credit. In this case, the Government gave with one hand and took with the other. In order to sustain herself on that new income, Pauline was forced to seek lower-cost accommodation, and moved out of her Eastbourne home to somewhere else in the county of Sussex.

I raised the case with the Pensions Minister. Pauline came with me to the Department for Work and Pensions. I have raised the matter in this Chamber at Prime Minister’s questions, and Pauline sat in the Gallery. Sadly, she passed away a few months after having to move, in November 2025, never having seen this issue corrected. I have pledged to continue this fight around pension communications and pension entitlement in her honour, together with her sons Simon and Les Haffenden.

The Royal British Legion has been clear that the current state of affairs is, in its view, a violation of the armed forces covenant. When I raised this injustice with the Government via the DWP, they said that the Government have no plans to change this policy. When I asked a written parliamentary question on what it would cost to exempt military compensation from pension credit entitlements, the answer was that

“no formal assessment has been made.”

The Government say that they cannot afford to fix this, but they have not undertaken to find out what fixing it would even cost. They cannot hide behind affordability when they have never looked at the price tag.

The Government have shown that they can act differently: after the Etherton review on LGBT veterans, the Minister confirmed that those compensation payments would, as is right, be exempt from tax and would not affect benefits. The Government have accepted the principle; it just has not been applied to Pauline, or the thousands of veterans like her. It must be applied to them, and that must be communicated to all of them.

I urge the Minister to begin correcting this injustice by undertaking a financial assessment of this change, and communicating that to veterans in receipt of the war disablement pension. I urge him to meet me and Pauline’s sons, Simon and Les Haffenden, who are continuing the campaign, so that we can discuss provisions to correct this injustice before the Bill’s Report, and can ensure that no veteran is ever again penalised for serving our country.

[Luke Akehurst]

It has been a pleasure to serve on the Select Committee set up to scrutinise this important legislation, which, as Members will know, renews our mandate for a standing Army and takes important strides on the covenant, service housing and service justice. The thrust of my speech will be against new clause 2, which is an attempt by the Opposition to play a political game with the timing of the publication of the crucial defence investment plan.

First, I pay tribute to the armed forces community across my constituency. As I said on Second Reading, North Durham is home to a large number of veterans and families of serving personnel. As their Member of Parliament, I want to use my voice to stand up for those people in our community who are serving, or have served, our country. That is why I was so keen to play a role in the passage of this Bill. The Select Committee also allowed me to highlight the work of the combined cadet force at Park View school in Chester-le-Street. I welcome the provisions to better integrate cadets into our armed forces by transforming the reserve forces and cadets associations into a non-departmental public body.

I turn to new clause 2. I would like to think that there is no one—with the possible exception of my hon. Friends the Ministers at the Ministry of Defence—who wants the defence investment plan tabled more than me. As I said in the defence estimates debate in this place on 4 March to the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry:

“My message to the Minister is to take back into the Whitehall system the support on both sides of the House for seeing the defence investment plan sooner rather than later”—[Official Report, 4 March 2026; Vol. 781, c. 895.]

We cannot afford more delay, because in the event of a war with a dangerous opponent, every month we delay could, in just a few years’ time, be a month in which our troops do not have the right kit in their hands.

As a north-east MP, I am aware of the strong industrial case for providing certainty about the footprint of our defence spending, so that we can drive investment towards communities like the one I represent. Many of my constituents are proud to travel to work for BAE Systems in Washington, where they make munitions for the British armed forces and our gallant allies in Ukraine, or work at Pearson Engineering in Newcastle, making essential components for armoured vehicle programmes, such as the turrets for Challenger 3. My constituents also hope that future MOD contracts will lead to the north-east of England becoming a major centre for the space industry. We need to get this right. We only have one shot at dealing with the equipment implications of the strategic defence review. We do not have an infinite pot of money. In fact, all of us know that the state of the public finances that this Government inherited in 2024 means that the pot of money for many pressing priorities, including defence, is decidedly, and sadly, finite, so we must make the right decisions about where to allocate resources.

As I have now said three times to the House, the political commitment of this Labour Government to finding the funding for defence equipment and procurement should not be doubted, given the early decision to cut the overseas development budget by half in order to increase defence spending. That was extremely painful and politically contentious, given that the aid budget is close to the hearts of many Labour Members, but it was the right thing for the Labour Government to do. That represented a historic commitment to the largest increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. Given that, no one should be in any doubt of this Government’s preparedness to make the further tough political decisions needed to properly fund the defence of the nation.

Indeed, I am hopeful that the DIP will be published before the plan would be that new clause 2 is trying to bounce the Government into. The Defence Secretary confirmed yesterday in the House that the Prime Minister is determined to publish the DIP before the NATO summit, which starts on 7 July. The plan in new clause 2 would be left until the end of the year, which is when the Bill will complete its passage. The Conservatives lost the political and moral right to dictate the timetable for how we best prepare for conflict after the British people ejected them from office, following over a decade of the tragic underfunding of our armed forces. Indeed, in their first year in government, the Conservative party cut defence spending by £2 billion. That is in stark contrast to this Government, who are spending over £11 billion more on defence than in the last year of the previous Government. Rather than tacking a timetable on to the Bill—a Bill that will play a hugely important role in improving how the state delivers for our armed forces community—I will be supporting the Government in publishing a well-thought-out DIP, that is not rushed but is published as soon as possible, so that we can start directing investment towards those industries that will play a key role in defending our nation in the coming years.

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

It was a pleasure to serve on the Select Committee, and I thank the Clerks and all those who made it run so smoothly.

Today I will focus on one area.

“I certainly think it is bizarre that there is not an English commissioner. That is 85% of the veteran population, while the other 15% have three commissioners to represent them. I would certainly support that.”

Those are not my words, but those of retired Lieutenant Commander Susie Hamilton, the Veterans Commissioner for Scotland, in response to a question from the Minister for the Armed Forces on the Select Committee earlier this year, regarding whether there should be a veterans commissioner for England. The view shared by all three commissioners for Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland is that the circa 1.4 million veterans who live in England lack their own veterans commissioner. They believe it is vital that we have parity and consistency across the nations, and an independent statutory advocate for veterans in England, so today I once again call for a national veterans commissioner for England, as proposed in new clause 3.