Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 7 in my own name and comment on Amendment 6 in this group. There is an obvious similarity between the two amendments. I worded mine slightly differently because the particular Secretary of State who may be required to provide information from time to time will vary. That is why in Amendment 7 I used the term ““relevant””. Similarly, it may be that in some reports specific requirements are made of one devolved administration and not another. There is a second reason why Amendment 7 differs from Amendment 6. I detected in conversations with the Government a sensitivity over any interference with the devolution settlement. I phrased my amendment so that it goes to the Administration rather than to the individual Minister in the Administration. I personally have no difficulty with the requirement going to the individual Minister in the devolved Administrations but, with personal experience in dealing with this for many years, I can assure the House that there will certainly be difficulties, particularly if that applies in Northern Ireland. I made the point at Second Reading and in Committee that we have cast-iron experience that there is a loose end in the Bill. At Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, expressed the views of many Members in this House that there was broad support for the covenant and that we were glad to see it coming before the House in the amendments. But the noble Baroness made the point that there were loose ends and that those would have to be tidied up as the process continued. We now have an opportunity to do just that. The wording of either of these amendments may not be perfect. Indeed, there may be technicalities here or there that need to be improved, but there is time for that to be done. I join with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, in the comments he made when introducing his amendment. Mine merely gives the Minister a different way of doing that, another option to achieve exactly the same thing. We want buy-in. An important point has been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Newton. If there is a statutory requirement on a department to do something, somebody in that department is plugged in to do it. All legislation and legislative requirements in a department are written down every year and a path is created in the department for that particular legislative requirement to be fulfilled. Otherwise, it is left to the whim of the relevant Minister, or to a correspondence between two private offices, or to whatever particular interest any given Minister may take in the subject. Making a requirement on a department ensures that the legislative section takes it on board and it is put into the programme of that department for a year ahead, so we know that the thing will be done right. I can well understand Government resisting amendments. I have done it myself and we all know it. My anxiety is over the fact that this is a unique piece of legislation. The speeches delivered by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, would have got the message across that we are dealing with something unique, and I welcome that. If one sees the privations and dangers that our service personnel are going through, and if we read, hear and see in our own areas the consequences of the actions that they are being required to take—far-reaching consequences that will grow in significance over time, because people are coming back from these wars with terrible injuries from which in other times they would have perished on the battlefield and facing 40, 50 or 60 years of life with them—they are going to put a major requirement on the delivery of service in the years ahead. It is not unreasonable in those circumstances to say to given departments, which I expect will vary from year to year, and to the devolved Administrations, that they have to be plugged into this process. I know there are sensitivities over interference with devolution settlements and I suppose that there may be some people who do not want to annoy Mr Salmond, or whoever, but the fact of the matter is that service personnel and former service personnel are a national responsibility. They are the responsibility of Parliament; they are employed as soldiers, service men, airmen and naval personnel on behalf of the United Kingdom, not on behalf of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England. It is therefore up to Parliament, irrespective of devolution settlements, to ensure that there is not a postcode lottery as far as the provision of services is concerned throughout this country. As I said, I know this from personal experience because last year, in the Northern Ireland Assembly, a Bill was introduced entitled the Armed Forces and Veterans Bill. It was a Private Member’s Bill and it went through all its stages. I provided the Minister with copies of the debate from the Committee and all the rest of it. Yet when push came to shove in February of this year, that Bill was vetoed and not allowed to proceed. That was done under the special provisions that we have, because some people objected to special provision being made for service personnel or former service personnel. I wrote to the Minister—he has kindly replied to me—that in Northern Ireland we have Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act, which is designed to prevent discrimination. I was concerned that people would hide behind the idea that if they were giving something special to service personnel, it would be discriminating in favour of a particular group, but I am happy to say that the Minister assured me that that was not the case. Nevertheless, I believe that there has to be some means of ensuring that Parliament is aware of what the input is and that if there is a special requirement which the Secretary of State should deem appropriate, it can be delivered. I believe that on two points: first, that of ensuring that departments actually deliver on this and, secondly, that there is no political interference at a devolved level with the delivery of service. This is a national provision. It will remain the responsibility of Parliament, which is the way it should be because defence is an excepted matter. Yet while that provision is never going to be the responsibility of the devolved Administrations, the delivery of the necessary services is—so Parliament has to prioritise and be clear. I have no problem whatever with whether that is done by means of Amendment 6, my own amendment or another amendment which we could deal with between now and next week. To ensure that it is done is the key and I therefore look forward very much to the Minister’s response to this group of amendments.