I thank my noble friend for tabling this amendment, and I understand his motivation for doing so. I want to develop this a little further because he has raised some interesting arguments. He has described how the amendment seeks to give the Secretary of State for Defence the power to amend the scope of the Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees’ statutory functions by regulations in the future.
My noble friend has described extensively what the VAPCs do across the UK. They are established under the Social Security Act 1989, with their functions set out in the War Pensions Committees Regulations 2000. Indeed, they used to be known as War Pensions Committees and their original role was expressly to raise awareness of the War Pension Scheme and latterly, the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, and to make representations to the MoD on behalf of recipients. For that reason, the enabling Act for the VAPCs, the Social Security Act, sets out that their statutory functions are limited to the cohort of veterans and their families who are claiming for or in receipt of one of the two compensation schemes. It is that limitation that my noble friend’s amendment seeks to remedy.
In practice, as my noble friend knows—he alluded to this—members of the VAPCs have for many years performed activities that go above and beyond that scope. For example, many members have taken on a role promoting the Armed Forces covenant locally to all those who might have an interest in it. They have done that on a non-statutory basis and there have been no substantive issues with them doing so. I therefore suggest that in this respect my noble friend’s amendment is not necessary to achieve the outcome that he seeks.
However, there is a desire on all sides for greater clarity on the role that VAPCs have. My honourable friend the Minister for Defence People and Veterans
joined a conference with the VAPCs yesterday and confirmed that he had signed off on a new set of terms of reference agreed by both the VAPC chairs and officials in the MoD and the Office for Veterans’ Affairs. The terms set out two new specific principles: first, to set out the activities that members of VAPCs as individuals and as members of informal regional groups are asked to carry out relating to all veterans and their families and, secondly, to provide direction relating to their performance for an initial period of 12 months beginning from 26 October, in order that we give the chairs a sensible period of time to adopt the new terms of reference and show how they can deliver against them. Following that initial 12-month period, the Minister for Defence People and Veterans will review the terms of reference and performance against the activities set out and will then make a determination on the next steps.
I say to my noble friend that the Government have a clear way forward over the next 12 months that has been agreed with the VAPCs themselves. We want to give them the chance to perform under the new terms of reference before we take any decisions about their longer-term future. We want to use the next 12 months to gather the evidence that we need to take an informed decision.
That is why I feel that my noble friend’s amendment is premature at this stage. To pass it now would put the cart before the horse. It would give the Secretary of State a power that we do not yet know if he would need or use. It would pre-empt the outcome of our work over the next 12 months and would imply that a change to the VAPCs’ statutory role was required when we have not yet actually come to any decision about that. It would provide only for a specific and rather limited adjustment to their statutory role when we might instead wish to consider more fundamental changes.
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I know that my noble friend argues that this amendment would give the Secretary of State the ability to make certain changes only if should he decide that these are needed at the end of the 12-month period, and that my noble friend feels it is better to have that power ready to use now rather than potentially having to wait another five years for the next Armed Forces Bill to roll round. I would make just two points about that approach. First, taking a power to achieve something through secondary legislation when the Government are still developing the policy is not considered good practice. Were the Government to have proposed this sort of thing, we would likely have faced criticism from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. If the work in train reveals that change is needed in primary legislation, we should bring our proposals to Parliament then. Secondly, should it become apparent that legislation is needed, the Government will seek to legislate when parliamentary time allows.
My noble friend will clearly understand that there are limits on how much I can speculate about this, but it does not necessarily mean waiting five years for the next Armed Forces Bill. The Ministry of Defence can legislate, and has legislated, outside the five-yearly
cycle when needed. I recognise my noble friend’s strength of feeling on this. The statutory position of the VAPCs has been subject to significant consideration within the MoD. We believe that the new terms of reference allow us to move substantially forward. I will certainly raise the wording of the advert that he referred to with officials.
I must apologise to my noble friend; I had hoped to discuss his amendment with him before consideration of it in Committee. I would certainly welcome an opportunity to have that discussion with him following today’s debate but, meanwhile, I invite him to withdraw his amendment at this time.