Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made on the potential impact of extending the Armed Forces Covenant Duty across his Departmental responsibilities.

Local authorities are already bound by this duty when they discharge their housing and homelessness duties, and independent Returning Officers and Electoral Registration Officers support service personnel and their families to register and to vote. Extending the legal duty of the Armed Forces Covenant to MHCLG would therefore align with my department’s existing policies.

A detailed assessment can be found in our response to the Defence Committee in April, available at: committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/142062/default/.