My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 65 and to Amendment 64. Like my noble friend Lady Brinton, I support the other amendments in this group brought by her and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. They have given us clear arguments why those amendments are important, and I do not think they need to be rehearsed again.
On Amendment 64, my noble friend talked about people who have come here under ARAP. She and I raised this at Second Reading, and the Minister was kind enough to take some time to discuss it with me yesterday; I am grateful for that. There is clearly a question of scope in an Armed Forces Bill such as this. To suggest that we might extend the Armed Forces covenant to people who have not been service personnel with the British Army, Commonwealth or Gurkhas might raise some eyebrows. There were certainly some questions about that around tabling Amendment 64, which is why there is a specific bit of phrasing about extending the covenant
“to cover civilians subject to service discipline”.
My noble friend Lady Brinton asked whether we have a moral duty. The answer is surely that we have a moral duty to support in every possible way the people coming to the United Kingdom under ARAP. By definition, they are arriving here under ARAP because they worked as interpreters for our Armed Forces, with other allies or perhaps for the British Council. Those who worked for the British Council are vulnerable. It is easy to assume that it is simply interpreters putting their lives on the line, but those who were out teaching English now find that their lives are under threat. It is incredibly important that we look at them, not just at interpreters—although the situation with interpreters is very important. Why bring this amendment? Clearly, the ARAP scheme is in place and remains open, but those coming in under ARAP have worked closely with our Armed Forces and potentially put their lives on the line for the United Kingdom.
Surely we owe them a duty. Given that the Armed Forces covenant is supposed not to give advantage to service personnel and veterans but to ensure that they are not at a disadvantage, so there will be many issues facing people here under ARAP that are very similar to those faced by service personnel and veterans. I would like the Minister at least to explore what provisions we can make for people under ARAP, in particular to
ensure that anybody arriving under ARAP can work from day one, because most people who come here under other Home Office arrangements seeking asylum are not permitted to work initially. That is very important.
My Amendment 65 is slightly different and perhaps should have been decoupled, because it relates to the duties put on local authorities and local health authorities. The Bill talks about having “due regard” and requesting local authorities to do certain things. At Second Reading, the Minister suggested that they have to have due regard, but there will not necessarily be financial provision for them to do so because they already have a duty to do certain things, so incorporating the Armed Forces covenant into law will not really make a difference. The way I phrased it may have sounded muddled, but I have been left muddled by the Government’s intention. If there is a purpose to putting the Armed Forces covenant into law, surely it is precisely to ensure that it makes a difference. If local authorities find that in paying “due regard”, now on a statutory basis, to the Armed Forces covenant they are required to engage in further expenditure, where will that money come from?
It is not possible within the scope of a Bill in the House of Lords to table a line saying, “Please give local authorities additional funds”, so we are not asking for that. We are asking for the Government to report on the financial implications of enshrining the Armed Forces covenant into law. If local authorities, housing associations and local health authorities incur financial consequences when engaging in their duties by supplying services such as social care, housing or health, we would then know that and it may at some suitable point be possible to bring forward relevant legislation. If no assessment is made, it is impossible to know the consequences.
The amendment is in a sense a probing amendment because we need to understand the real consequences of enshrining the Armed Forces covenant into law. If it is causing local authorities additional costs over which they have no say we should try to ensure that the finances are there to cover that.