Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I thank all noble and noble and gallant Lords who have taken part in this short but very good and useful debate. It shows the depth of your Lordships’ House that we have people on this Committee who have first-hand experience of our Armed Forces and can speak with that knowledge. My amendment was born out of frustration—more from despair—over the way that the HD committee has handled the Pingat Jasa Malaysia Medal issue. As came across in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, we are treating our veterans unfairly in this respect. It is also time to overhaul the way in which advice is given to Her Majesty the Queen. Indeed, the view expressed by the Prime Minister in June last year was: "““Greater transparency across Government is at the heart of our shared commitment to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account””." It behoves the Government to make sure that this work is done in a more transparent way. I take the point of the noble Viscount, Lord Slim. There is an always an issue about whether we should involve politicians in these matters. However, I am sure noble Lords and others who are here will not misunderstand when I say that civil servants are not better qualified than politicians. Certainly, from my time as a Minister I know that civil servants have political agendas. I do not mean that it is party political but there is a small political agenda within the Civil Service. I am grateful to the Minister for his response, which was wide-ranging. I hope that the Government will reflect further because, as my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe, said, if we were to vote on this matter today I think that the Government would be on the losing side. There is much merit in taking this back and giving it further reflection. I end by saying simply that we should look around at ourselves today. We are here because a politician advised Her Majesty the Queen that we should be here—so should we be too worried about politicians giving advice to Her Majesty on these matters? I pass that off as a reflection. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 25 withdrawn. Amendment 26 Moved by