The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)
The armed forces covenant sets out the obligation that the Government and the nation have to the armed forces community. The covenant has two key principles: that those who serve in the armed forces, whether regular or reserve, those who have served in the past, and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services; and that special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given the most, such as the injured and bereaved.
The Armed Forces Act 2011 enshrines these principles in law and places an obligation on the Defence Secretary to report to Parliament each year on the effects of membership of the armed forces on serving personnel, veterans and their families.
The Government are today publishing the second covenant annual report, which I am laying in the House today. The report’s main chapters are based around the fields specified in the legislation: health care, education, housing and the operation of inquests. Each chapter reports on some of the key achievements of the past year and records what more we plan to do.
Over the last 12 months, we have:
committed £17.5 million to ensure that Headley Court and nine specialist NHS facilities in England can provide state of the art prosthetics for injured personnel;
increased the service pupil premium to £300 per child from April 2013;
ensured that seriously injured veterans receive a new armed forces independence payment and will receive at least as much under this arrangement as they currently do from the highest rates of disability living allowance or personal independence payment;
revised the schools admissions code to allow infant schools in England to exceed the maximum class size in order to admit a service child;
purchased an additional 700 new high-quality properties for service families to begin occupying this year;
continued the community covenant, under which almost 400 local authorities in Great Britain have now pledged to work to bring the civilian and armed forces communities closer together;
allocated some £35 million through the covenant LIBOR fund to support charities and others in delivering 96 projects that will benefit the armed forces community; and
introduced the corporate covenant, which provides an opportunity for businesses and other organisations to declare their support for members of the armed forces community who work for and use their services.
Looking ahead, the report makes a number of commitments:
the new unified Defence Primary Healthcare Service will be fully operational from April 2014;
Ofsted will report on the use of the service pupil premium in schools with service children;
access to the standard learning credits scheme will be extended to all members of the reserve forces from April 2014;
a ministerially-chaired board will be established to oversee progress with improvements to the provision of service accommodation;
the MOD will consider whether there could be more flexibility in the provision of service accommodation, such as extending entitlement to those in long-term relationships; and
the MOD will provide a defined contribution for all paid service in the reserve forces to the future armed forces pension scheme with effect from April 2015.
The report has been compiled in consultation with the covenant reference group, which brings together representatives from Government Departments, the devolved Governments in Scotland and Wales, and from external members, including the three families federations, the Confederation of Service Charities, the Royal British Legion, SSAFA, the War Widows Association and Professor Hew Strachan of Oxford university. As in previous years, observations by the external members of the covenant reference group are published as part of the report itself. Once again, I am most grateful to the external members for their continued involvement and assistance.