Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 14 and 15 in my name and that of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. First, we welcome the fact that we have a military covenant in this Bill. I would also like to thank the Minister for being so accessible to colleagues by way of explanation of what is happening and the availability of his officials for consultation. As I see it, the big issue, basically, is this. I would like a situation where all servicepeople, irrespective of postcode, can expect that they and their families will, as far as is practicable, be able to command and receive the services that we believe are necessary in the event of them getting into difficulties on the battlefield or, in the event of a fatality, back-up for their families, which is broadly the same throughout the United Kingdom. In other words, a serviceperson from a particular part of the United Kingdom should not go onto the battlefield with the thought hanging over his or her head that if anything went wrong they or their families would receive less help and service in some parts of the United Kingdom. I think that it was the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, who is not in her place, who said at Second Reading that we had some loose ends to tidy up, and I believe we have loose ends here. As has been stated by other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, the issue is simply that the Secretary of State is not in charge of the delivery mechanisms that are required to ensure that the covenant means something to the people for whom it is designed. Not only does he not control other Whitehall departments, but it is perfectly obvious that in the age of devolution he does not control what the devolved Administrations do. As we know, they receive block grants and, as it so happens, are in charge of the three issues that have been highlighted in the Bill—health, education and housing. Therefore, we are trying to ensure that when the Secretary of State makes his or her report to Parliament, Parliament knows who is feeding input into that report so that it can judge whether or not it is comprehensive. I do not wish to unpick or interfere with devolution settlements. That is not what this amendment is about. This amendment is allowing Parliament to be informed as to who precisely is contributing to the report. Turning to the Explanatory Notes, the end of paragraph 19 says: "““Under new section 359A(6) the Secretary of State must also consider whether effects covered by the report would justify making special provision for servicepeople, or a category of them. If the Secretary of State does consider that to be the case, the report must say so.””" If the Secretary of State subsequently decided that something under that heading would have to be done, they could not deliver—at least not in all parts of the United Kingdom. That is perfectly obvious, because the Secretary of State is no longer in control. Therefore, we have the pieces on the board that are necessary to deliver a covenant, but we have not put them together in the most effective way. Let us look ahead. It has been said that so much has changed in five years. For instance, people are coming off the battlefield with injuries that would in previous circumstances have caused them to perish. There are multiple amputees and people with horrific injuries. I have seen them in my own city. Many are in their early 20s. They may live for 60 or 70 years. They will need enormous amounts of help. In fact, we cannot at this stage fully appreciate the help that they will need, both physically and mentally. That will cost money. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, has tried to identify precisely what will be required. Devolution provides block grants and it is up to the devolved Administrations to decide how the grants are distributed. Unless there is a clear framework within which to operate, how are we to prevent a divergence between services that are provided in different parts of the United Kingdom over time? One way would be at the beginning to connect every part of the UK to the report process, so that everybody knows that the very least they have to do is report. I will give a cast-iron example. If we run into difficulties with this issue, at least Parliament will know and will be in a position to take decisions. Defence has always been an excepted matter when it comes to devolution; it was never envisaged that defence matters would ever be part of the remit of the devolved Administrations. Last year, a colleague of mine in Stormont introduced an armed forces and veterans Bill, designed to do much the same as the covenant. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said that this sort of thing happens at county level; this was an attempt to make it happen at regional level. It went through its processes—Committee, Second Reading and so on—but when push came to shove under the system that exists in Northern Ireland, it was vetoed in February and could not be taken further. One knows—one does not have to imagine—the potential for difficulties to arise. Given that our primary objective in the amendment is to ensure that there is no postcode lottery, and given the fact that, devolution or not, defence is clearly a national issue—servicepeople defend all of this country, not part of it—it is necessary that the treatment they receive is broadly similar. I want to avoid a difficulty. We know that if we in Northern Ireland force a nationalist to put his or her hand up to support the British Armed Forces, we will get a negative response: so why do we run the risk of putting people in a difficult position? Let us tidy things up to a very modest extent by requiring the Secretary of State to tell Parliament what input has been made by departments in Whitehall and the devolved Administrations. I do not want this to be a Northern Ireland only issue: it is a national issue. I believe that that is the way forward. I have some experience of doing Bills at regional level and I have to say that the Minister looks at you and feels your pain. It is rare for someone to say no with such generosity and compassion, but nevertheless he seems to do so. He knows how strongly many of us feel about this. We are delighted that the covenant is here and believe that many parts of it can be tweaked and adjusted, which is exactly the process that we are going through in this Committee. I sincerely hope that between now and Report the Minister, if unable to give us a positive response today, will reflect on what has been said by a whole series of noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelate. Many of these themes are very similar. We are all trying to achieve the same objective. We will be looking carefully at it and we are prepared to return to the matter on Report should it prove necessary.