My Lords, I shall speak briefly about Amendment 2. First, I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield for raising this whole issue and for speaking so clearly and comprehensively about his amendment. I speak with some trepidation because I spot five former Defence Ministers in Committee and three very distinguished former senior officers in the Armed Forces. But I believe that we need a moment of caution before we separate responsibility for looking at and making sure that the covenant is properly observed and pointing out difficulties and failure to achieve objectives from ministerial responsibility.
Like many of my colleagues of all parties, I speak as having served twice in the Ministry of Defence. I believe strongly that the responsibility of the Secretary of State, through his junior Ministers—Ministers of State and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries—should not be in any way compromised by attempting to shuffle it off to an independent reviewer. This is a bureaucratic point, not one of principle. It is a point about how the Ministry of Defence works.
I strongly recommend to your Lordships that there be some reflection before the next stage of the Bill about how we separate or connect responsibility for the independent reviewer, or a reviewer, who inevitably will be a civil servant, from ministerial responsibility. Looking back over the past 20 or 30 years in Parliament, I think that some issues, particularly in relation to the covenant, have been not shuffled off but forgotten by the politicians. We have to return to the central responsibility of the politicians—Ministers—to Parliament for honouring the covenant. It is a matter of attention by Ministers and of accountability—accountability directly to your Lordships’ House and to the House of Commons. We have to find the right balance to make sure that this is not seen just as another bureaucratic invention that looks after the problem and reports, without making sure that we pin down political and ministerial responsibility.
I hope that between now and Report we can reflect on this, but I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on tabling Amendment 2 and speaking so eloquently and sensibly about the issue.
Armed Forces Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Freeman
(Conservative)
in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 6 September 2011.
It occurred during Debate on bills
and
Committee proceeding on Armed Forces Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
730 c11-2GC 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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2023-12-15 20:59:38 +0000
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