Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, this first group of amendments to Clause 2 consists of some 12 items, and deals with many aspects of the Armed Forces covenant and the proposed annual report. I am very grateful for the Committee’s patience, especially as, in order to draw out some common themes, I will not keep to the strict numerical order of amendments. Amendment 1, in the name of the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Craig and Lord Boyce, would change the position of the provision for the Armed Forces covenant report in the Armed Forces Act. At Second Reading, the noble and gallant Lord referred to an ““unfortunate juxtaposition”” if the new provision were inserted directly after Section 359, which deals with pardons for servicemen executed during the First World War. I am most grateful to the noble and gallant Lord for the helpful and constructive way in which he has approached this issue. In their amendment, the noble and gallant Lords propose that the new provision should be moved to follow Section 339. This would place it in Part 14, which covers topics such as enlistment and terms of service. We do not favour that, because we see the annual report and the Armed Forces covenant itself going far beyond enlistment and terms of service. I had hoped that we could arrange a printing change, such that the new provision was inserted into the 2006 Act at new Section 353A, under its own italic ““Armed forces covenant report”” cross-heading. As the noble and gallant Lord said, I wrote to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, in these terms. I thought that we had a deal. Regrettably, I have now been advised that the Public Bill Office has declined to make the proposed change in printing points, having originally said that it was acceptable. Nevertheless, I reassure the noble and gallant Lords that there is no significance in the current proposed location next to Section 359. The two provisions are unrelated but are both properly categorised as ““miscellaneous””. No relationship is implied by their positioning. Therefore, I do not consider that there is a major issue about the correctness or appropriateness of the new section. Three other amendments in the group deal with the annual report of the covenant. Amendment 10, tabled by my noble friend Lord Palmer, concerns housing. The noble Lords, Lord Kakkar and Lord Patel, focus in Amendment 11 on healthcare research. The noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Tunnicliffe, propose a longer list of additions in Amendment 5. The amendments draw attention to very important subjects. Amendment 10, tabled by my noble friend Lord Palmer, requires the report to provide an update on progress with housing associations towards improving service accommodation. In practice, housing associations may contribute more to helping service leavers and veterans to find suitable housing than helping those in service. Our successful pilot shared-equity scheme is managed by a housing association. Housing is one of the core topics mentioned in Clause 2 and the Government regard it as one of the most important elements of the Armed Forces covenant. We have been very active in exploring the scope to do more for our people, for example through the housing summit organised by the Housing Minister in May this year. Some housing associations are already doing excellent work in this field, and we will always be interested in good ideas from the housing sector. Similarly, in response to Amendment 11, proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Kakkar and Lord Patel, we recognise the importance of commissioning and reporting on research designed to underpin healthcare for servicepeople. Very valuable research has already been commissioned by my department, such as the work of Professor Simon Wessely and the King’s Centre for Military Health Research, comparing the health of those who deploy on operations with a control group. We will continue to support research into healthcare issues affecting servicepeople, both in-house and, where appropriate, through external funding. Other bodies inside and outside government will also commission relevant research. This is a hugely important subject and we take it very seriously. The noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Tunnicliffe, tabled a much longer list of subjects to be covered in the report, which I suspect is designed to cover everything relating to the covenant. The assumption that the amendments have in common is that the best way to ensure that the annual report covers issues that matter is to name them in legislation. We disagree. Any attempt to write a comprehensive list is unlikely to be successful. Even if it captures everything today, it will be out of date tomorrow. Topics which became less important over time would still have to be covered every year. The annual report could become a box-ticking exercise. We feel that it would be much better to have a short list of three enduring topics, as the Bill proposes. There are certain to be issues relating to healthcare, education and housing, and to at least one section of the Armed Forces community, in every year of the report. That is why we believe that they should be included as indicative of the coverage of the report. Beyond that, we should allow the Secretary of State to exercise his discretion on what to cover and for Ministers to defend their decisions. I now turn to Amendments 3 and 12, which consider the position of government departments. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, have suggested that responsibility should be taken away from the Secretary of State for Defence. In one case it would be given to the Minister for Veterans Policy, wherever he sits in the Government; in the other it would be given specifically to the Cabinet Office. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has made it clear in the past that he believes that it would be more effective for the Minister with responsibility for veterans issues to sit outside the Ministry of Defence. The Government’s view remains that the current arrangements work. The Government fully support veterans and I meet a great many, which is always a huge privilege. We have announced a number of major steps to support veterans, including improved access to higher and further education, improvements to Armed Forces compensation, extra help for those with mental health problems and the institution of a veterans card next year. Our tradition and our expectation is that all arms of government will play their part in supporting veterans, rather than moving towards a centralised American model. We see no reason to change that. However, the most significant disadvantage of these amendments is the implication that the report is focused on the veterans community. The Armed Forces covenant also covers serving personnel and their families, and an annual report must in its turn address the issues which face those groups. There is no suggestion that responsibility for serving personnel will lie outside the Ministry of Defence in the future. To place this duty on a Minister who may not be at the MoD would put us in a somewhat strange position. I am conscious that I owe the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, an answer to his question on the earlier amendment and I hope that I will have that before I end my speech. Amendment 9, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lee and his colleagues, highlights the contribution of other government departments to the annual report. The report which the Secretary of State lays before Parliament will be his own and he must be responsible for it. But it will reflect the views of the Government as a whole—that is very important—and it will have been approved by the Government as a whole. For example, there is no danger of the Ministry of Defence somehow working in a passage on healthcare which runs counter to the position of the Department of Health. It will be fairly clear to the reader which sections of the report are based on the contribution of which government department. I do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate to create a statutory duty to set this out. Indeed, if the Secretary of State decides to cover other issues beyond healthcare, education and housing, there would be no matching reference in the legislation. I turn to the other amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Tunnicliffe. Amendments 4 and 16 require the Secretary of State to publish the observations of the external reference group and other consulted parties, and seek to define the external reference group. The external reference group, now renamed the covenant reference group, is an important part of the machinery that underpins the Armed Forces covenant. It monitors the performance of the Government in meeting their commitments and discusses with key stakeholders issues relating to the covenant. I am sure that when the noble and gallant Lords look at the membership of the covenant reference group, they will understand that it will keep Ministers on their toes. The service personnel command paper that the previous Administration published in July 2008—I compliment them on the work that they did on this very important issue—represents a significant step forward in this area. I put on record the Government's endorsement of that initiative. The external reference group was one of the legacies of that work. The coalition Government want the group to continue. Earlier this year, we moved quickly to dispel any ambiguity on that point. We are very grateful for the work done by all its members, inside and outside government. The Government are committed to consulting widely in drafting the annual report. My right honourable friend the Defence Secretary said in another place on 16 May this year that we would publish the observations of non-government members of the external reference group alongside the report. Given that clear commitment, there is no need to include it in legislation. The covenant reference group is perfectly able to carry out its functions without these being enshrined in statute. Amendment 19, again tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Tunnicliffe, refers to the role of the ombudsman. I pay tribute to the work of both the Parliamentary and Local Government Ombudsmen. They and their colleagues around the United Kingdom can do much to help members of the Armed Forces community. They are keen to understand more about the circumstances of service men and women and their families, and have welcomed the familiarisation events that my officials have organised. In turn, we can do more to make service personnel aware of how the ombudsmen can help them. It is much less clear what this amendment would add to their role. Its scope seems to be limited to service personnel, excluding family members and veterans. It also refers to two documents that, whatever their merits, will in time be supplemented by further steps to meet new circumstances. In short, the ombudsmen have a vital role to play, but it will not be enhanced by the amendment. My response to that earlier question of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is ““no””. The clause makes it clear that certain matters must be covered, but it will not necessarily be right to report on every possible subgroup within the very broad scope of servicepeople. The Secretary of State, with the advice of the covenant reference group, will decide what the key issues are, and the report will deal with those groups of servicepeople to whom the issues relate. This is what the Explanatory Notes refer to. I hope that what I have read out makes sense. I will follow it up with a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and copy in all noble Lords present, to make sure that the point is fully understood. I come to the two amendments that imply the most radical change. The noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Tunnicliffe, propose in Amendment 5 that a statutory duty should be imposed on all public bodies and government departments to have regard to the principles set out in Clause 2(3)—the covenant principles— when formulating policy. The Government do not agree with this proposition. We have no quarrel—quite the opposite—with the idea that public bodies should take into account the principles of the covenant in their work. However, that does not mean that a statutory duty as proposed would be either helpful or appropriate. The progress we have made on the covenant has been achieved through detailed co-operation with public bodies across Whitehall and builds on their own desire to do what is best for servicepeople. The Government strongly oppose the idea that this should be accompanied by the creation of new rights and legal duties. A new duty would lead to an increase in bureaucracy as public bodies and Ministers sought to demonstrate that they had complied. It would add little by way of practical benefits, given the difficulty of proving that a public body or Minister had failed to have regard to relevant matters, yet it would create a very real risk of litigation that no one wants. That is not what the Government want and, more importantly, it is not what members of the Armed Forces want. The covenant is a statement of moral obligation, not of legally enforceable rights, and it should remain that way. Finally, I turn to Amendment 2 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield who has taken a very close interest in the Armed Forces covenant. I remember the excellent debate on the subject which he prompted in July. I was heartened to hear the right reverend Prelate say that he believes that the Government are taking the covenant seriously. This amendment would remove the requirement for an Armed Forces covenant report altogether as a principal route by which Parliament is kept informed. In its place, the Secretary of State would lay before Parliament independent reports on welfare and there would be a new reviewer of Armed Forces welfare with an office of his own. It is worth recording the origin of Clause 2 of the Bill—the Government’s desire to write the Armed Forces covenant into the law of the land. The right reverend Prelate’s proposal would relegate the covenant to a very minor role, no longer at centre stage. The role of the reviewer of Armed Forces welfare, as set out in the amendment, does not appear to cover the families of service personnel, though I do not suppose the right reverend Prelate intended to exclude them. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned a concern about costs. A reviewer would have to have staff and everything that would go with it. We recognise that the independence of the annual report is an important issue for many noble Lords. There is a view that the Government should not be left to mark their own homework and that there should be an element of external audit. I can, however, offer the Committee reassurance on this point. The Government have stated that they will consult widely in preparing an annual report. That is where we will get the evidence of what is happening. We will publish the observations of the covenant reference group, who are not slow to come forward. Beyond that, we know that any report which failed to give a proper account of the situation on the ground would get short-shrift in Parliament and rightly so. We want the annual report to be accurate and we want it to be informative so that we can debate the issues properly. Fundamentally, in matters of Armed Forces welfare, we believe that the Government should report to Parliament and account for their actions. This amendment not only creates an unnecessary new body, it serves to draw responsibility away from Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, asked Ministers to pick up the ““mood of the nation””, a mood which he and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, did so much to change. The Government have listened carefully and for the first time have recognised the covenant in law and put the key principles on the face of the Bill. Many important points have been made during this session. I hope I have persuaded the Committee that the amendments in this group should be withdrawn.