Armed Forces Commissioner Bill (Second sitting)
Tuesday 10th December 2024
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesArmed Forces Commissioner Bill 2024-26 View all Armed Forces Commissioner Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 10 December 2024 - (10 Dec 2024)
The Chair
We are now sitting in public and the proceedings are being broadcast. We will now hear oral evidence from Abby Dryden, CEO of the Defence Medical Welfare Service. We have until 2.20 pm for this panel. Before I ask Abby to introduce herself, are there any declarations of interest?
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Apologies, Mr Efford, for not announcing it this morning, but I am a trustee of the armed forces parliamentary scheme.
Examination of Witness
Abby Dryden gave evidence.
The Chair
Q
Abby Dryden: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Abby Dryden. I am the chief executive of the Defence Medical Welfare Service.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Q
Abby Dryden: I have had time to consider the Library paper and look at the Bill, and the position of my organisation, DMWS, is that if there is anything the commissioner could add to the positive experience individuals have of military service, we are supportive of that. We do not really maintain a position on existing service provision; we are quite neutral in our view in general. Our main interest is welfare delivery for service personnel in secondary care settings. If the commissioner was able to support some of the issues we identify and create a situation where armed forces personnel felt better supported, or there was increased or enhanced support for them in those settings, we would be supportive. Beyond that, I do not think we have a particular view one way or the other on the Bill itself.
Mr Francois
Q
Abby Dryden: Since 2018, we have collected detailed evidence on the experience that armed forces personnel have while they are in secondary care settings. We normally monitor the themes and trends that are identified by the people we work closely with. We identify about 10 trends each year, and we look at how we, as an organisation, and our funders can better understand how military personnel can be supported. In terms of the trends that we have identified, we usually find topics such as receiving care that is understanding of the unique position that armed forces personnel can find themselves in, the settings in which they receive care, and understanding that it is a highly mobile population.
We often deal with people who have complex family arrangements or children with special educational needs, for example, and military personnel who are quite badly injured. In those circumstances, it is important to understand that service life is a hugely positive experience for many people, but there are certain times when an enhanced service provision would be beneficial. That could be when admissions to hospital take place or when there is an increased pressure on the family as a whole. In terms of understanding how armed forces personnel could be better supported, that would be very useful. What would also be useful for armed forces personnel is an understanding that creating a positive narrative—or mentioning some of the positives of service life—is important, as much as it is important to identify the negatives.
Mr Francois
Q
We are all constituency MPs here, so we all know how difficult it can be. It is not a partisan point at all. Has there been any progress on that issue at all over the past couple of years, and if not, is it an issue that we should raise on Thursday?
Abby Dryden: I think progress has been made, but there is a need for awareness of the fact that we are dealing with a highly mobile population, which is restricted by procedural requirements. Again, it is probably similar to some of the issues that we deal with in relation to care and treatment for certain medical conditions, which might be at the top of lists, then fall down to the bottom again when families change location. I would say that yes, generally, progress has been made in a moderate fashion. However, a lot of the time, there is nothing that helps people dealing with different bodies, such as NHS trusts or local authorities, which should be talking to one another in a meaningful way and identifying that progress has been made in one area—for example, that an achievement of a special educational needs status has been identified—and porting it over to another area. There is progress to be made.
In our organisation, the welfare officers work predominantly with serving personnel, and a big part of what they do is maintaining the momentum for the family and their progress through systems and processes, in both NHS and educational settings.
Mr Francois
One of the fundamental principles of the armed forces covenant is that there should be no disadvantage as a result of service.
Abby Dryden: Yes, absolutely.
Mr Francois
If you are saying that the situation has got a bit better, that is encouraging, but I think you are also implying that there is more work to be done. We might want to explore that on Thursday under the “General service welfare” part of the Bill.
Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)
Q
Abby Dryden: I do not have any specific concerns about that. I would generally have concerns about any change in process, as the shortcomings of a process can sometimes be identified quite easily, but it can be quite difficult to create something in its place that functions effectively from the start. I would just be concerned about the transition, but I would not have any specific concerns.
Michelle Scrogham
Q
Abby Dryden: Numerous things are probably needed to ensure success. I cannot comment on those things directly, as I do not have enough experience to comment reasonably.
David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
Q
Abby Dryden: Any process we have to support the raising of complaints would usually occur, and usually quite effectively occur, through the existing chain of command. In the 12 years that I have worked for the Defence Medical Welfare Service, I have not been involved in an issue where we have been required to go to the ombudsman. In that sense, you could say that the current system is working reasonably effectively. Equally, you could say that there are probably issues that require further identification or require the system to be more easily accessible, but usually the kinds of issues we deal with are things that can be resolved by the chain of command, which has a vested interest in resolving issues presented to us for its personnel and is keen to do so.
David Reed
Q
Abby Dryden: Part of our contract with the Ministry of Defence states that we work closely with the chain of command but are independent of the chain of command. I would not say that we are specialists in guiding a family through potentially making a complaint, but we are specialists in understanding the delicate and conflicting interests that might be at work in some of the situations that we deal with. If we feel there is a need to refer beyond the chain of command, or outside it, we have a process for that. Our internal management structure scrutinises that on a monthly and six-monthly basis.
David Reed
Q
Abby Dryden: I think it will be a different process, and we will obviously have to consider revising it, but I do not think our viewpoint and our purpose in very many of the issues we deal with will change significantly.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
Q
Abby Dryden: I would hope so. The arrangements in the devolved nations, particularly in my experience of healthcare, are different, and it is about being conversant and fully aware of how it works in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There is a call for a nuanced and different understanding that supports some of the issues that present when personnel move to another devolved nation or another area of the United Kingdom.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
Q
Abby Dryden: I can only speak about my organisation’s experience of working with the pre-existing welfare structures. The vast majority of the time those structures work very well, and they work well because of the people who are involved; they care about personnel. In my experience, I have only ever encountered a positive approach from military processes, structures and the chain of command side of things in terms of addressing the issues that we present to them. They are very much interested in the quality of life that personnel enjoy.
In terms of how I see the commissioner supporting that, how it could be different and where there might be gaps, there is always room for improvement. For example, younger people joining the military may have a different expectation of what that structure should represent to them, how they should be able to access services and the proximity that that institution has to their quality of life and the quality of their family’s life. I would say that the commissioner should focus on the changing expectation of new recruits and young people. That might be a positive addition.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard)
Q
Abby Dryden: Lots of services are very much centred around the serving person. That is not a failing of those services, but I think families can sometimes, but not always, feel peripheral to proceedings. I think—[Interruption.]
The Chair
Q
Abby Dryden: Just to say that with families and the commissioner, putting families of all kinds at the centre of everything that goes on is key. The notion of family has changed significantly, so it is about making sure that there is an inclusive understanding of what a family might constitute. For non-UK serving personnel it is important as well.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
Q
Abby Dryden: We do that on a regular basis. As for referrals to other charities, there is the Army Families Federation, the Naval Families Federation—that type of organisation—as well as specialist organisations for health conditions or for things that are specific to the individual that we have assessed might be of benefit to them. We also refer to legal advice if we feel that that is something they are asking us to provide them with. That is a regular thing that we undertake organisationally.
David Reed
I have a close family member who works for one of the charities here today.
The Chair
Okay. I am sure that has covered you. For the record, could all the witnesses please introduce themselves?
Col. Darren Doherty: I am Darren Doherty. I am the director of grants and welfare at the Army Benevolent Fund and am representing the Army Benevolent Fund here today. I am a former—well, I have to keep checking myself. I am not a former Army officer; I am still an Army officer. I have just completed 38 years of regular service with the Army and I was reminded just last Friday that I have a reserve liability for the next few years, so I am still part of that organisation as well. I have been in this role with the Army Benevolent Fund since 1 November.
Mandy Harding: Good afternoon. My name is Mandy Harding, and I am head of commissioned grants at the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity.
Air Commodore Simon Harper: Good afternoon, everyone. I am Simon Harper. I am director of grants, services and programmes for the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund and have been since March 2023; I am effectively responsible for the charitable output of the benevolent fund. Prior to that, I served for 34 years in the Royal Air Force and for two years before that in the Royal Navy.
Mr Francois
Q
Col. Darren Doherty: We have rebranded now. The old terminology of ABF The Soldiers’ Charity was what we used for a number of years until last year. We have rebranded again, at a very low cost. It did not cost us very much. We did not go through any hugely expensive marketing routine to do it, but we are now the Army Benevolent Fund.
Mr Francois
Q
Col. Darren Doherty: That is correct.
Mr Francois
Q
Col. Darren Doherty: It is not an area of expertise for me. I think the provision of pensions and advice on pensions—this is from my personal experience of having just gone through it—is adequate, with the support of great institutions such as the Forces Pension Society as an additional advising actor. I am not sure that it is something that would require specifically laying out in the Bill. That is my own opinion.
Mr Francois
Q
Can we switch to the Royal Air Force, please? Air Commodore Harper, you are probably too young to remember, sir, but in the cold war there was what was called the tactical evaluation process, or TACEVAL. It was a bit like a military Ofsted, and a team could turn up at an airbase—for example, RAF Brüggen in West Germany—say that world war three had just broken out and basically put the station through its paces for several days, and they would get an Ofsted-like score at the end.
It is not quite as severe as that, but the Armed Forces Commissioner has an Ofsted-like capability under the Bill to turn up unannounced, certainly within the UK; it is more complicated if it is abroad. Do you think that that power will be valuable in holding people to account and concentrating minds, and how often do you think the commissioner should use it?
Air Commodore Simon Harper: I am old enough to recall TACEVAL, sir, and was part of that way back in the late 1980s.
Mr Francois
I was trying to be nice.
Air Commodore Simon Harper: You are very kind, but I remember it as Ofsted-like. When I was a commanding officer, I remember Ofsted visiting my unit, which was a training unit as well. I will phrase my answer in that respect. I found those inspections to the chain of command hugely beneficial on two grounds: they provided an independent view of the operational output of a given unit, and they allowed me to ensure, with confidence, that I had the appropriate processes and policies in place to deliver my output.
I have not been close to the Air Force in a regular sense for 18 months, but I guess the challenge would be how that is defined either in the Bill or in the roles and responsibilities of the commissioner—what output are you looking for from a particular unit, and what is it you are checking? The Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund will not have a particular view, but my personal view is that, if properly configured, it would be of value to commanding officers. I have no specific view on timescale, but once every 18 months would be the absolute maximum for me, based on my own personal experience in a training establishment.
Mr Francois
Q
We will move to the Royal Navy—apologies for leaving the senior service until last, Ms Harding. On the housing side, in my experience all three services tend to treat service housing slightly differently. From memory, quite a lot of service personnel live off base and tend to commute to their place of work. Quite a few of them actually buy a property rather than live in a quarter. Obviously, housing is one issue that the commissioner will look at. Are you happy that the powers in the Bill are sufficient for the commissioner to investigate that issue? I am thinking particularly about the ability to produce thematic reports, and housing is an obvious issue for an early report. Do you have a particular view on that?
Mandy Harding: From what I have read of the Bill, my understanding is that the Armed Forces Commissioner will have the power to investigate and look at issues that are arising. In our charity’s line of work, we come into contact with beneficiaries and we get reports in through the partners and organisations that we fund. In direct work with the people we have been supporting, particularly on neurodiversity and special educational needs and disabilities, housing does crop up.
That is the exciting part of having an Armed Forces Commissioner—somebody who can hear from different areas and connect the dots to realise what is happening in different places. There is an oversight role there. That is incredibly useful to us as grant funders. We do our grant funding based on need, so if need is identified, that is where we can bring that wraparound support to families.
Mr Francois
Q
Mandy Harding: We realise that a lot of our families have “plus, plus, plus” issues. We know that across the country there are issues with SEND. Getting assessments is very difficult and transferring across local authorities is particularly tricky. The issues were laid out quite well in the “Living in our Shoes” report by Professor Jan Walker, which was commissioned in 2019. She laid out some recommendations, most of which—over 100—were accepted by the Government at the time. We have built on that report. We have continued to investigate need; we have gone out to beneficiaries to find out what is going on and what they need. That is the power of using commissioning principles in our grant-making, which is quite unique. We can then commission with the use of grants, having seen who the best provider is.
One of the big pieces of work we are doing is around neurodiversity. It is a big area of work, and I have already booked to speak to both my colleagues either side of me, because we would like to make this a tri-service piece of work going forward. I think that is what will be required to enable the changes that we can see might need to happen.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
Q
The provision in clause 3 provides that service complaints can be made from people who are not necessarily service personnel, which is different from what happens with the ombudsman now. First, what are your thoughts on that? Secondly, one of the themes that has come through is the need for trust and transparency about the impact from anything that the new role does. How could that change enhance that?
Mandy Harding: I can take the first part of the question. I referred to the “Living in our Shoes” report by Professor Jan Walker. That report was very significant because it identified that when one person serves, the whole family serves. Having access for families is a welcome addition and my colleagues at the Naval Families Federation will be able to speak more effectively on that. It is not my area of expertise, because I am a grant maker, but I am sure that they would have more to say.
Air Commodore Simon Harper: I agree completely. We have a phrase in the Air Force: “Support the family”. You retain the service person by supporting the family. In respect to the question you ask, I would be supportive of the service family having that access. As a charity, it is important that we recognise the offer to the serving person. That offer is effectively a psychological contract that covers many different aspects, whether it be pay, pensions, housing, accommodation, food, or ability to get access to medical and dental care— and, indeed, the charities, too, play a role in that offer. It affects the serving families in different points at different times. It is very difficult to say there is a single issue or a few issues that are causing the level of dissatisfaction reported through the armed forces continuous attitude surveys and the like and through the families continuous attitude survey.
We are a families federation, and provide more detail on certain families. It is a multi-faceted issue, though, and difficult to pinpoint one particular place. It is important to understand that that offer is multifaceted and is a psychological contract at its very heart. It could take a number of things, which begin over time, to wear away the good will of that family, which then leads to dissatisfaction and, ultimately, people leaving the services.
Col. Darren Doherty: I do not think I can add much more to that, or comment on access to the service complaints system from beyond the serving person. I can speak about the wider family context and put it against what we provide.
As the Army Benevolent Fund, we provide a lifetime of support to serving and former soldiers and their immediate families, including the bereaved, when they are in need. That has built up since the Army Benevolent Fund was formed, 80 years ago. Even then, we understood the importance of the family unit and the importance of supporting the continuum of service, not just of the service person but of the whole family as they continue through the journey: joining, leaving and then serving, whether as a reservist, or a regular reservist, as in my case, and as a veteran, with the family that serves alongside them. That person, family or service person might be bereaved as well. It is about that total inclusivity.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Q
Air Commodore Simon Harper: I am happy to take the question. Yes, I suppose there is that potential. The chain of command still has a vital role. Where I could see the benefit is that, having gone through and made my point about the offer being multifaceted, the response for the serving person and their family is multifaceted as well. The Armed Forces Commissioner can play a key role in that.
There will be times, I suspect, when the legislation will come into conflict—perhaps that is the wrong term—with the chain of command. I still think the chain of command must be the overarching way in which military effect and operational output is delivered. That is the success of how it is done. But I think that, appropriately placed, the Armed Forces Commissioner can support, augment and, in co-operation with the chain of command, improve the lives of the serving person and the family. There is a risk, of course, but I think it can work.
Col. Darren Doherty: I agree with all that. There is potential for the Bill to undermine the chain of command and potential for it to work against the chain of command; much depends on the selection of the right individual to do the role and on the role being developed and there being a framework for operating how the office goes about its business beyond what is laid out in the Bill. This is about building trust and confidence with those it supports, including individuals who might bring things to the attention of the commissioner, and also about the confidence of the wider organisation as well.
To answer your question, there is that potential, but everything that I have read in the Bill, heard in the debates and read in Hansard is in people’s minds. I listened to some of the earlier speakers today comparing it the outwith-the-chain-of-command ways that we have with dealing with issues now. You will well remember dealing with the padre and medical officers as something outside the chain of command.
All those things do not happen overnight. Those need to be built up as individual relationships in terms of trust within organisations. This is something new—a step beyond what the ombudsman provides. It will take time and careful implementation, from a practical perspective, for it to work. But I do see that there is huge benefit in having such an office there for the individual and the organisation and in support of the chain of command as well. They can potentially all work together.
Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)
Q
Col. Darren Doherty: The legislation is certainly strong enough to put them in that position. Again, it goes back to the type of individual selected for the role and the trust and the confidence that they build with the community. I can speak only on behalf of the Army.
It will take a period of time to educate people on what the role is. That is why it is absolutely critical that the Bill is fit for purpose and, more importantly, that the policy and framework that sit beyond it, in terms of implementation, are right as well, and that we are absolutely clear where the boundaries and responsibilities for the office lie, and also the gearing between it and other offices.
That goes back to one of the issues raised a few times in the debate, which is the scope of the role—looking predominantly at the community subject to service law and how that relates to the wider military community, going back to that continuum of service. How that all interlocks with what is currently provided by the Minister for Veterans and People and veterans commissioners, where they exist, is all very important in the messaging and communicating with the community.
It is a wide remit. It is summed up in a few small sentences, but dealing with welfare issues could be incredibly complex and wide-ranging. There are very few welfare issues that do not straddle the serving family and go into the veteran space in a sort of time continuum. Those are all important parts of the messaging of what the role is going to be about.
Helen Maguire
Q
Col. Darren Doherty: The legislation is clear where access is permitted and enabled. It will be a challenge where matters of operational security come into it, but I think all those are manageable. Again, it is about the framework of how the office will operate—it will need to be right where it is needed.
My experience of operations, going back to my previous experience, but close to my heart, is that welfare is a chain-of-command business. It is what officers, senior non-commissioned officers and junior non-commissioned officers get paid to do. I am always minded that they often do that best on operations. I would hope that the commissioner’s role would be less needed in operations, but that is yet to be proved by evidence or experience. I would hope that we get on with that better there than perhaps we do in some of the quieter, peacetime locations.
Helen Maguire
Q
Mandy Harding: It is difficult to know how distinct our challenges are, because I do not know the challenges that the communities of my colleagues face. Somebody told me that the Army tend to work within family groupings and units, whereas the Navy take a village to sea. I thought that was an interesting analogy of the difference. That brings different issues. Lengths of deployment are different. Beyond that, I am not sure I can offer you more because I am not sighted on my colleagues’ areas of expertise.
Helen Maguire
Q
Air Commodore Simon Harper: I would make two points. There is a community and a family around a particular RAF station, of which there are 24 or 26 in the UK and others elsewhere, but there is increasingly a diaspora of families who live elsewhere, separated from that base. You have individuals who are weekend commuting to a different location where there is not the localised support for a family. It varies.
Generally speaking, historically, the support has always been focused around a serving base for the Royal Air Force. Increasingly, we need to reach out into other areas of the UK, where families have now settled for other reasons. That diaspora is UK-wide, in the UK context. It is a different challenge and there are different needs associated with both.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard)
Q
Could you give us a flavour of the issues coming forward in the cohort that we are talking about in the Bill to your organisations and how you think shining a spotlight on some of those structural issues might be able to address some of the underlying causes? The purpose of the commissioner is, ideally, to assist in removing some of the barriers, obstacles and challenges that our service people and their families face. I would be interested to get your sense as to whether those structural issues have always been here or whether you have seen changes in recent years that need to be addressed by the commissioner.
Col. Darren Doherty: I would start by saying that much of our work is currently done and our support is currently provided to the veteran and family community. Only about 12% of our grants go to the serving community. That is because we base them on need and, thankfully, many in the serving community do not feel that need until they have left. Of that 12%, much is made up of family support in terms of bereavement and those sorts of things.
I think the situation is changing. In the future, I think we are going to look much more towards causation and prevention, which will be more within the serving community. I would highlight a project that we have recently become involved with, which is funding a training and education mechanism that will look at domestic abuse. That is not just treating or helping to support the victims of domestic abuse through a helpline, although that is part of it. The main part, through a charity called SafeLives, is looking at training and education. Much of that is aimed towards our serving community, through their own welfare officers. That initiative was prompted by the work of our trustees identifying that they thought this might be an issue. We cross-checked that with the Army and they believed it was.
That is an example where a thematic study carried out, or a report by the commissioner, could help identify other areas of need in the serving community where the third sector and in the Army’s case, the Army Benevolent Fund, could intervene and try to get at some of the root causes of these issues. That is where we intend to go in the future, while still providing the same degree of support to meet the need that we do now.
Mandy Harding: We are a commissioning charity in the sense that our grant-making uses commissioning principles based on need. We commission through grants to partners to deliver the outcomes. We do that by identifying need. We are very interested in needs, and any identified needs, because where we can identify the need, that is where we can appropriate the right resources and the right investment. From our point of view, anything that helps with that is very useful.
In terms of what is coming up, we have just commissioned some new work around mental health and wellbeing because of the changes we are seeing. Deployments now are to hostile areas, families have less information and the anxiety is harder for them. You cannot shield children so easily from social media and the news. Families have explained to us that they have tried to shield their children from the news in the home, but that changes the moment they go to school—I think HMS Diamond was probably a very good example of what happened, and the distress that those families felt at seeing that on the news and trying to shield their children from what was going on. There is a change and a shift.
From our charity’s position, we are currently looking at need again. We did a piece of need research of our own in 2019. Professor Walker’s work came in, which was incredibly helpful. With colleagues at Greenwich Hospital and at the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, we are all looking at need. We are working with the RAF and with the RAND research project to try to see what need is there. If a commissioner came in, it follows that we would be supportive of a commissioner who might be able to pull themes together for us, and then we can make the appropriate investments.
The only thought that I would offer from our experience of working with beneficiaries and organisations—particularly when I have done research into need and talked with beneficiaries—is to manage expectations. I think managing families’ expectations of this will be a challenge.
Air Commodore Simon Harper: I just have a few points to add. From a Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund perspective, we augment what the service already provides. Much of what we see in the serving community in particular is what the air force has asked us to provide or, indeed, where we have found a specific need that is not being provided for either by the Royal Air Force locally on station or by partner charities.
I would pick up two areas in which we have seen an increase or growth over the last couple of years. The first is in emotional wellbeing support and sub-clinical mental wellbeing. We have a listening and counselling service that is accessed by over 2,000 people a year, of whom 80% are from the serving community. It was originally set up as a veterans’ programme, and it is now dominated by the serving community.
The second area is around children and young people. Increasingly, we have picked up a requirement to support children and young people, not just through after-school clubs or our youth club provision on stations, but through holiday provision as well. Increasingly, we are seeing the need to support serving children. Particularly where both parents are serving—that is increasing—we have picked that up as a requirement, and colleagues from the Royal Air Force Families Federation will be able to help with that.
As far as addressing underlying causes and needs goes, if the commissioner can be part of that solution, as I mentioned earlier, that would be fantastic. Already, it is a multifaceted response, but if the commissioner can come and say, “Here is an issue. This is what we have picked up. Is it being picked up by any other organisations?”—that includes, by the way, local authorities, the NHS and local education authorities—I think that would be of huge benefit.
David Reed
Q
Col. Darren Doherty: I do not know.
Mandy Harding: I am firmly in grants, so I am not the right person to answer that question, I am afraid.
Air Commodore Simon Harper: From what I have seen, it is not clear how that would happen.
David Reed
Q
Air Commodore Simon Harper: Yes, it would.
The Chair
No further questions, so I thank the three of you for giving evidence this afternoon. We will move on to our next panel.
Examination of Witnesses
Collette Musgrave, Sarah Clewes and Maria Lyle gave evidence.
The Chair
Welcome: will each of you introduce yourself for the record?
Collette Musgrave: I am Collette Musgrave, the chief executive of the Army Families Federation.
Sarah Clewes: I am Sarah Clewes, the chief executive of the Naval Families Federation.
Maria Lyle: I am Maria Lyle, director of the RAF Families Federation.
Mr Francois
Q
You represent the families of service personnel and, as at the heart of the Bill are issues of general service welfare, may I give each of you an opportunity to raise your top two or three issues under that heading that you would like to see the commissioner produce early thematic reports on and to give us some idea why you picked those? This time, let us start with the senior service.
Sarah Clewes: “Welfare” is an interesting term. We are not in the welfare space. The Navy is looked after by the Royal Navy families and personnel service—they deal with welfare. However, under what “welfare” might mean to families, at the Naval Families Federation, our top two issues are housing and support to non-UK serving personnel and their families, with visa and immigration, the processes and the ongoing need for support from our qualified caseworkers.
Collette Musgrave: To be frank, I will be boring and raise the same two issues—but I will expand a little on “non-UK”. We have had multiple investigations and reports on the state of housing and accommodation—SLA and SFA—but there has been little investigation into the nature of the challenges that non-UK serving personnel, or family members who might be non-UK, also face in service family life.
Mr Francois
Q
Collette Musgrave: Non-UK serving personnel have been increasing year on year and form a much greater proportion of our armed forces than they once did.
Mr Francois
The Royal Air Force, what about you? It will be interesting to see whether we have a hat trick. Will you give us your top one or two?
Maria Lyle: You nearly have a hat trick. You say that we represent families, which we absolutely do. We represent serving personnel as well, which is why I will mention housing in terms of houses, but also single-living accommodation. We had 650 people who came to us this year on that issue, before we get going on housing itself.
My second one—we have a much smaller non-UK population in the RAF because we recruit differently—would be education and childcare. That is what people come to us about in its various forms and facets.
Mr Francois
Q
Maria Lyle: It does. That is the very sharpest end of the wedge when it comes to challenges for military families. If they are moving, picking up that provision and replicating it in a new area is not always possible. I would say that they are the most vulnerable—the ones who have the biggest challenges to overcome in our systems.
Mr Francois
Q
Collette Musgrave: I would merely echo Maria’s comments. It is very much at the sharp end of things in education provision for service children. SEN is a real concern for us, and significant numbers of people articulate to us that they are going to either leave or serve in separated service, because of the frustrations felt through many years of moving from location to location and having to start the SEN process over again. The transferability of many things that affect service personnel and their families, both for those inside the UK and those moving to and from the UK, is a real challenge and can often be the final tipping point for them making that decision to either leave or serve unaccompanied.
Mr Francois
Q
Collette Musgrave: Indeed you did.
Mr Francois
The pressure on family life, as we have already heard today, is the single biggest reason why people leave, but when we went round a number of military bases, we found it was often an amalgam of reasons. Sometimes there would be a pressure cooker effect over several years, and then one thing might become, in colloquial English, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Sometimes it is that cocktail that just becomes a bit too much. Is that a fair characterisation? [Interruption.] I can see some heads nodding, so that still holds good five years on. Thank you very much. You have been generous with your time, Mr Efford—thank you.
Helen Maguire
Q
Collette Musgrave: The challenges that we see with families getting the support they need can be articulated as both internal and external. Internal services and processes are the ones that Defence offers to families in order to maintain service family life, and then there are those provided by what one might characterise as external agencies—whether that is local authorities, the NHS, educational provision or whatever. The nature of the challenge can be different depending on with whom families are seeking to engage.
The challenges within the internal system can be largely about not being able to access the right information, not being given the right information when asking for it, consistency of the information and guidance that is given, and consistency of the provision. As we have spoken about, Army families in particular are very mobile, and what they are provided with in one location might be very different to what they are provided with in another, both in extent and quality of provision. We would really like to see the Armed Forces Commissioner do something on that in their role.
As the Army Families Federation, we absolutely welcome the introduction of an Armed Forces Commissioner with, as the Secretary of State said, a laser-like focus on the serving experience, which is often lost when talking about the armed forces community—those who are actually serving at the moment. We believe the Armed Forces Commissioner can play a key role in looking at the consistency of provision of both policy and processes within defence. Many of the concerns that come to us are a result of mixed information and mixed messages, and families not being able to access the provision that is there because they simply do not know how to access it or are being blocked in some way.
Externally, the issue is subtly different. There is not an unwillingness from the general UK population to support service personnel and their families. What there is sometimes is a lack of knowledge and understanding. In many of the large organisations that they are interfacing with, whether that is the NHS, a local authority or the Department for Work and Pensions, there is often a lack of understanding of the unique circumstances of service personnel and their families. It is difficult sometimes for those families in particular, who are to an extent slightly outside society—I am not articulating that well, because that is not what I want to say, particularly as a former service family and veteran myself. Often with housing, as well as sometimes healthcare and education—particularly if they are overseas or move back from overseas—their interfaces with external statutory authorities are not always straightforward and can vary hugely as they move around the country. Your experience in Scotland might be very different to your experience in England. Their ability to interface effectively with those services can sometimes be compromised.
Many of these organisations have signed up to the armed forces covenant. The people at the top are very happy to sign up to the armed forces covenant and say, “Yes, we made a great commitment.” The people on the frontline, who are actually dealing with our service personnel and their families, are often not so well-informed and do not necessarily fully understand some of the additional or different provision that has been made under the terms of the armed forces covenant. Those are the big handfuls, and to finally answer your question, those two key areas are where the Armed Forces Commissioner could help.
Helen Maguire
Q
Sarah Clewes: It is about just being mindful that not all naval families live around the base port areas. You would expect that some do, and that is absolutely fine, but others choose to live wherever their support network or employment is. Actually, dispersed families are much more common than you would perhaps think, because there is that assumption that everyone lives in service family accommodation around a base port area, but they absolutely do not.
It is about trying to reach those people who are very happy and thriving in their community of choice, who may not need any support from the Navy. Actually, when they do, hopefully they have a life-changing event or do not know about the free swimming and sailing that is available to them. It is about spreading the net really wide and saying, “If you ever need that support, we are here for you, in whatever guise that may be.” Welfare is absolutely not our part of ship, but it is about actually giving that little nugget of information to take away a little bit of pain. They may be juggling a very successful career and childcare while their partner or spouse is at sea or—worse still—under the water for six months, with absolutely no contact or very limited contact.
When appreciating service life, it is all very well to think that we know what it means, but we really have to understand what it means across a huge range of issues, and family dynamics are huge. We really need to be mindful of who we are talking about when we talk about families, and let’s not just pigeonhole folk and think we know.
Therefore, it is important that the commissioner does what we do on a daily basis. They have to ask, “What does that look like for naval families? VAT on school fees, what does that look like for naval families? Have you given them the information they need to make those informed choices or will they have to half-guess and hope that a hardship fund will become available so that they can get through Christmas?” It could be really impactful, and like Colette, I am absolutely interested to see how this could develop.
Helen Maguire
Q
Maria Lyle: I will not replay what my colleagues have said. Collette articulated a lot of the challenges that RAF families would also face in terms of their mobility. We very much see that. The thing that sums it up for me is the line that says that part of the role is improving public awareness of the welfare issues that serving families and personnel face, which I would wholeheartedly support. My only slight qualm about that is that it works two ways. Having a role that coalesces that understanding and helps us amplify people’s voices could be really powerful.
I would like to put on the record that I think it would be helpful if it is done in a way that supports the role in general, rather than put people off joining our military. Part of the challenge the military has at the moment is the impact of gapping and poor retention. This needs to be a part of bolstering the offer and talking about some of the benefits and challenges of military life. Otherwise we run the risk of making life worse for people because retention falls even lower. I recognise that is straying into a different area, but I would not want an opportunity to become a threat.
Luke Pollard
Q
I am interested to get your perspective on how you think an Armed Forces Commissioner’s office would deal with and seek to build trust with the families, because it is much easier for the commissioner to visit a base. If there is accommodation on site, that might be the case. But we know that not everyone who serves and their families live on bases. We explicitly exclude the commissioner from having a right to inspect someone’s home without notice, for very good and obvious reasons. But how do you think the commissioner should access and seek to get views from and be responsive to the needs of families? I know that will change depending on service and location and the barriers to get there. It is important that we have an understanding about what they are so we can seek to overcome them. Can you expand on that kind of challenge? Shall we go to the Navy first?
Sarah Clewes: That will be the tricky bit—building the trust and giving prompt responses. Doing what the commissioner says he or she is going to do will be really important to build that trust. We know from the covenant, for example, that has been around for 12 years, that if you ask serving personnel and their families, a large percentage of them still do not know what the covenant is, what it does, or how it changes their lives, and that has been around for a long time.
That is just an example of how education is absolutely key, as is building trust and rapport and having really slick processes so that if somebody has been invited to ask a question they get a swift response in plain language. Again, that will be really important when you respond to a serving personnel. You might send them a link to a joint service publication or whatever, but that will not wash with families who probably cannot access the JSP because of the firewall. What good is that? So having those tailored responses and being mindful of the audience that will be new will be absolutely key, and that will be the tricky bit.
Collette Musgrave: I would echo Sarah’s comments. Something that we have grappled with for a long time is how you engage with families. It is really important to understand, as Sarah says, how important trust in the system is. If expectations are not met fairly swiftly, families, on past experience, will simply not engage. But there is a more practical element, which Sarah touched on: access, accessibility and understandability. Too many of the responses that come out of Defence and too much of the communication is in language that is simply not accessible to people who are not wearing uniform. As somebody who used to wear uniform and was an MOD civil servant, I would argue that at times it is not even accessible to me, so it is about making it clear and really easy to access and offering a range of access.
Yes, we are all shifting to digital, and yes, we have seen in our organisations a distinct switch to people wanting to engage with us via email or other digital means, but there is still a large section of families who are not really able or willing to engage with that process. They will need to be able to pick up the phone and speak to somebody, and to have somebody at the other end who understands what they are saying. If I may refer back to the housing issue, the roll-out of the new housing contract and the Pinnacle help desk, one of the biggest issues with that was not having somebody who picked up the phone. When someone did, they had no empathy or sympathy with the issues being raised, let alone an understanding of them. In terms of the physical process of access, that will be absolutely key in ensuring that that works for families, is consistent and delivers what they expect.
Maria Lyle: The only thing I would add is that there is an opportunity to get it right at the beginning. Yes, no one gets everything nailed on the first time—the person in that role needs to develop it—but if the offer is clear at the beginning, it makes it a lot easier. By that, I mean: is this office more strategic or tactical? That is part of the process that we are working out now. By that, I mean that if people are making a series of phone calls to that office, it will have to be staffed to deal with multiple thousands of calls a year. If that is not what the office is set up to do, and if it is more about dealing with and amplifying strategic messaging about what is going wrong, the communications could be based on that. But if families are led to believe, “This is somewhere I can ring and they will get my house sorted,” it is about managing those expectations and nailing those comms.
Therefore, upstream of that, it is about being very clear and coherent about what the office is setting out to do. Is it individual case management for any family who rings up with a problem? That is very different from an office that views the evidence and goes, “The key issues for military families are these three. Here is what my team is going to do about them.” In terms of what you communicate to families, those are quite different beasts. It is really important to get that right.
Pam Cox
Q
“the welfare of persons subject to service law and”—
this is a key phrase—“relevant family members”. That is left deliberately broad. What is your view on how a relevant family member might be defined?
Collette Musgrave: Where to start? This is a problem that we have grappled with for many years. The Army Families Federation is 42 years old, and what a family member looked like back then is very different from what a family member looks like now.
Maintaining that flexibility about what a family member is has been absolutely key for us in being able to properly support families. It may very well be a spouse or civil partner, or it may be a child. It may be a grandparent, if they were involved in caring for or supporting the family in any way. It may be an aunt or uncle. Quite frankly, with many of the people we deal with, some of whom have had quite challenging and difficult upbringings, it may be that they regard their wider friendship network as their family and their support network. It is a real challenge sometimes for us as an organisation to delineate and work this out so that we can best support the individual or the family in question.
Clearly, when it comes to the provision of defence processes and services, there are quite clear rules and regulations about who is in scope. My organisation and I personally might take issue with some of those, but none the less they are quite clearly laid out. One of the key difficulties that families face is often navigating that alongside their expectations, and alongside how wider society and some of the statutory external bodies I referred to earlier regard a family. It is that level of confusion that this process will have to work through quite quickly, referring back to Maria’s point about expectation management.
I note that in the debate and the questions in the House there were quite a lot of comments about bereaved families. There has been a significant amount of work over the last couple of years on identifying and supporting bereaved families, and meeting their actual needs rather than their perceived needs. We would certainly like to see bereaved families being addressed in some way within the scope of the Armed Forces Commissioner’s activities.
That would probably be something of a challenge, because the needs and requirements of a family when they are initially bereaved can be quite different from those of a bereaved family 10 or 20 years down the line. That would most definitely be something of a challenge for the Armed Forces Commissioner to work through. Nevertheless, we feel quite strongly that bereaved families should be included in the scope of the definition of families. Beyond that, it is not straightforward. We would like to see the broadest possible definition, because that is what service personnel and their families need, and it should be responsive to their needs and not to what happens to be in the relevant JSP.
Maria Lyle: I recognise that in the legislation, there may need to be—I do not know; I am not responsible for passing this Bill—a clause about what is applicable overseas and in the UK regarding families, for example, and how they are defined and dealt with.
I will give a live example of why it is important to keep the definition as broad as possible. At the moment, adult children are no longer defined as “dependents”, but many families talk to us about the needs of their young adult children who cannot access bases because they can no longer get a dependent’s pass, perhaps because they are at university or have left university. These days, of course, it is really hard for a young person to get accommodation, so they often stay at home sharing married quarters in a way that they would not have done 10 or 20 years ago. It is that sort of thing—the changing shape of family—and this Bill is an opportunity to allow some of those issues to be voiced and made relevant to an Armed Forces Commissioner.
Sarah Clewes: A family may also constitute a couple who have chosen not to have children or who cannot have children. We may think of them as a couple, but actually they are a family, because they are a couple. Are they within or without scope? It is important to consider every single differing family dynamic so that people are not excluded.
Michelle Scrogham
Q
Maria Lyle: I was thinking about that element beforehand. It depends on how the process pans out, in terms of how strategic or how tactical the role of the commissioner’s office is. We want this Bill to be a really helpful change in how military families and personnel are supported, so we want there to be as useful a working relationship with the Armed Forces Commissioner as possible.
For example, we would be really keen to share with the commissioner on a regular basis the information and evidence that we receive all year. There is a rich pattern of data across the sector—the third sector that deals with families—that could be brought to bear in terms of identifying exactly where the big issues are that the Armed Forces Commissioner could shine a light on, perhaps leaning in with Government Departments.
The change in this Bill is the report to Parliament. The armed forces covenant also provides for a report to Parliament every year. That is not necessarily independent; it is Government reporting on themselves. The legislation gives a layer of independence. If we can use this mechanism and get behind it to help the commissioner to have the evidence they need to enact change, that is certainly how we see our role and work with the commissioner’s office.
Sarah Clewes: Just to add to that, I think evidence is absolutely key. If we were to go for a scattergun approach and ask several charities, they would have an opinion. However, is that helpful? The families federations work very hard to provide evidence so that we can find the themes and find out what matters most. That is not to say that we discount other things that may be in the margin, but I think it is so important to have an evidence base on which to make decisions. Otherwise we could just go for a scattergun approach, tie ourselves up in knots and jump on things that perhaps are important to some, but are they as important for others? We need a certain amount of prioritisation, and that is exactly what we have been doing for a number of years. The opportunity to build on that and funnel some of the information upwards for decision making is most welcome.
Collette Musgrave: Just to build on my colleagues’ comments, I think many—not all, but many—of the issues that face service personnel and their families, and that impact positively or negatively on their decisions about whether to join and stay in the armed forces, are fairly well known and have been looked at in the past from a number of angles. As Sarah and Maria say, there is a rich level of evidence already in place. It is a question of using that, but really trying to understand the scale and depth of the issues.
The issues are all well known, and there are many of us who will get behind a certain one at a certain time, or there will be an external event that prompts examination. But it is a question of understanding, across that broad range, which ones are really impacting rather than being an irritation. What is making a real difference, and what is the depth and scale? Getting in behind those issues is where the Armed Forces Commissioner could bring real value. Galvanising all the various bodies externally, and across defence and across Government, to co-ordinate and co-operate to do that could be quite a significant and positive change.
David Reed
Q
Sarah Clewes: That is a really good question. It is a case of dealing with the frustration. As I mentioned, the issue is the inability to make an informed choice. If people are given the information that they need, they can decide which way to go, but when they do not have that information or it comes late, they feel let down again. It is an erosion of the offer; they are not feeling looked after.
This is in the context of busy serving personnel who are not at home for long periods of time to do admin. That is often left to the spouse, who cannot make the decisions because they, too, do not have the information that they require. Again, this is all about feeling valued and feeling as though, if it is part of the offer, there should be a slick process whereby armed forces personnel have been considered and can get the information that they need to look after their children and give them the continuity of education that they deserve.
It is about the package and making people feel valued. It is also about being mindful that people are very busy when deployed on a ship or a submarine, which is the case for the people that we are looking after. Of course, the Royal Marines’ operational tempo is just constant, so there is not time. If there is time to be at home and do things such as admin for the CEA or whatever, the processes need to be really slick.
We have had instances of people coming to us and saying, “This is just too tricky; it’s too difficult. I’ve tried this, and I’ve tried to speak to that person, and in the end it’s too difficult. Do you know what? I’m going to leave because I’ve had enough. It’s too difficult.” That is where we will come in and say, “Surely you must be able to speak to a human being who understands your frustration and who can get this over the line, so that you can go and deploy without being distracted.” A lot of the time, it falls back to the charity sector to help in those ways. Is that right? I do not know, but it is becoming more prevalent that the charities will pick things up, just to take away a bit of the pain. It really should not be that painful. I am not sure if that answers the question, but slick processes, information and feeling valued are key.
David Reed
Q
Maria Lyle: I do not believe that I have a specific concern that the ombudsman being rolled into the Armed Forces Commissioner will make things more complex, or worse. Any machinery of government change will potentially add some time to a system—I get that. I do think there is an opportunity to look at the complaints system itself, and whether it is fully fit for purpose in that change, but I recognise that that is not what the Bill is focused on. My main concern is about whether the actual ombudsman processes are as effective as they can be when they are moved over, so they do not cause problems.
Collette Musgrave: I echo my colleague’s comments; there is nothing substantive that I can add.
The Chair
If there are no more questions, let us thank our witnesses for coming and giving evidence this afternoon. Thank you very much. The star of the show is now going to take the floor.
Examination of Witnesses
Luke Pollard MP gave evidence.
The Chair
Minister, if you could give us your name, rank and serial number, we will get on.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard): Hello, my name is Luke Pollard. I am the Minister for the Armed Forces.
Mr Francois
Q
I have a couple of other questions on the Bill. You said something on Second Reading that was not entirely clear—I do not mean that critically; it is just the way that it came out. Is the commissioner still going to take up individual cases that have exhausted the service complaints process, in the way that the Service Complaints Ombudsman currently does, or is the commissioner going to concentrate generally on more thematic issues? If it is the latter and not the former, that is a big change. Could you clarify that?
Luke Pollard: Yes, certainly. On the point about SEND, we have not specified an exhaustive list of precisely what the commissioner should be looking at because the independence of the commissioner allows them to choose which issues they want to address, based on the feedback that they are receiving from armed forces personnel and their families, or that they have identified on their visits. It is not an exhaustive list, and we are happy to look at particular circumstances—thank you for the notice.
When it comes to the role of the commissioner, we are effectively rolling the Service Complaints Ombudsman functions into the commissioner. The additional own initiative powers that will be added to this role, forming the commissioner’s office, will be for them to undertake thematic inquiries. Again, we have not overly specified the process that will happen when someone gets in touch with the commissioner, precisely because we want the commissioner to define what their processes should be and to have the independence to establish the processes, the structures and the ability to listen and feed into their thematic reports.
To the same extent, we have not specified how many thematic reports a commissioner should make. We are working on the assumption that, if they are looking at a range of issues, an annual report would contain a summary of their work throughout the year, as well as the usual annual reporting details about staff levels, volumes and other bits like that.
The Bill also includes the power for the commissioner to publish a separate report on a thematic issue if they choose to. It will be down to the commissioner to decide not only where that comes from, but where the issues are taken up. The commissioner has the ability to look at the service complaints system and the issues coming through that as one measure for deciding what thematic areas to investigate. It will be for the commissioner to decide what recommendations to make to Government via Parliament.
Mr Francois
Q
Luke Pollard: Exactly right—all the SCOAF functions move in their entirety. The only change we are making to the SCOAF functions is a very slight and minor one: at the moment, you need an officer to decide validity or eligibility, but that is being changed to an official. Apart from that, the entire SCOAF system is deliberately unchanged, because the place for any revisions to the functioning of the service complaints system would be the armed forces Bill, which will come in about two years’ time. The Bill gives the commissioner the ability to be informed by the service complaints system, as well as anything else they may receive, when deciding on thematic investigations or areas they want to look at.
Mr Francois
That is pretty clear, so thank you for clarifying. I will stop there because I know you have only limited time for your panel and others will want to ask questions.
Michelle Scrogham
Q
Luke Pollard: The Minister for Veterans and People has been looking at the system and will be taking steps to see what the most appropriate representation or system to put in place is. We inherited a system that has national veterans commissioners in some locations, but not all. Al Carns will look at that in due course.
We have deliberately not specified the interaction between any established commissioner for veterans or veterans group and the commissioner in the Bill, because we want the Armed Forces Commissioner to make an independent judgment. My expectation, however, is that there would be regular meetings between the commissioner and the variety of stakeholder groups that operate in the wider armed forces community, partly to check in on issues, but also, importantly, to check in on the progress of their recommendations and how they are being implemented.
A key part of this process is shining a spotlight on an issue, and in my mind it is not sufficient to say, “Here is an issue,” and just present it to Parliament. There needs to be an understanding of what happens next with it, and that is where that interaction would probably be most found.
Michelle Scrogham
Q
Luke Pollard: When the commissioner’s office is stood up, there will be a ways of working agreement between the commissioner and the single services about how things work. I am not expecting the Armed Forces Commissioner to use their unannounced powers frequently. If you look at the German model, the armed forces commissioner in Germany spends about a third of her year undertaking visits, of which nearly all are planned. The ability to make an unannounced visit in the commissioner’s toolbox makes those powers even more prominent, because if an issue is reaching a certain threshold, they can decide to make an unannounced visit.
The powers on national security that we have included in the Bill come from the importance of making sure that in the proper exercising of their duties, the commissioner is focusing on general service welfare matters. What we do not want to see the commissioner doing, as you heard when the current SCOAF presented earlier, is looking at the secret squirrel elements. I do not want them looking into the intelligence services or secret squirrel locations, such as the operational design of missions. That all sits outside their remit; their remit is solely focused on general service welfare. The ability to define that via secondary legislation is a prudent and proportionate power that we have in the Bill. I suspect what will actually happen in most cases is, once the secondary legislation that details that has been published, a ways of working approach will be established.
I cannot really imagine any Armed Forces Commissioner having a remit or operations that step outside that clearly defined general service welfare lane, but if there are concerns, there is also a power in the Bill for the Secretary of State to exercise that caution on visits, especially if there is a national security consideration. We would not expect that, given the welfare focus, but it is a proportionate safeguarding power, just in case.
Lincoln Jopp
Q
“This Bill will establish an independent Commissioner to serve as a direct point of contact for Armed Forces personnel and their families.”
However, I read the Bill and it does not do that. It takes on the ombudsman’s powers—that is chunk one—but only for service complaints. If someone has a housing problem, it is rarely going to be subject to a service complaint; it will go up the housing route. The second chunk is about more general thematic investigations. The Bill does those two things, but I do not think it provides a place for people to go day to day when they have a problem, because that gets into the jurisdictions of local authorities and local education authorities—there is a series of routes. If you are telling us that we are going to change the service complaints procedure so that—[Interruption.]
Lincoln Jopp
Q
Luke Pollard: Thank you. I do not think that it is necessary to legislate for the ability of the commissioner to have an email address, a website or a postal address. We gave a commitment on Second Reading that the commissioner should be accessible by a range of means. It is up to the commissioner to determine what that range of means is and to flex their resourcing to deliver that. The intent behind the establishment of the three functions as you described them, however, will be to provide a way for people who are serving to contact the commissioner. It might be for the commissioner to decide that, with thematic investigations, they operate a consultation function or a direct stakeholder function, in addition to some of the means of direct contact, but that is not necessary to have in primary legislation, which is the reason why it is not in primary legislation, but in the explanatory note, to explain the different roles that the commissioner will have.
Lincoln Jopp
Q
Luke Pollard: The important thing is to look at the outcome and the focus. The commissioner’s job is not to countermand orders or instructions given by the chain of command. That is not in their remit and they would not be able to undertake that activity. Where they will be support for the chain of command is in delivering a better output for their people.
In recent years, certainly—the situation that the new Government have inherited—we have had morale falling in all our services every year for the past 10 years. For every 100 people who join the armed forces, at the moment 130 leave, and that is not good enough. When we talk about renewing the contract between the nation and those who serve and about the Armed Forces Commissioner being the first legislative pillar to do that—the largest pay rises for 20 years and increasing recruits’ pay by 35% are part of that, fellow travellers on the journey—we are trying to support people to join the armed forces and to stay in them longer.
We are aware that for some of the chain of command, the issues that their people are raising with them are not within their remit. For example, over many years and certainly in the past decade or so, we have contractualised housing out of the responsibility of a base commander. Therefore, the ability of commanding officers to respond to some of the welfare needs of their people has been diminished by changes in contractualisation and operating procedures. We hope to make inroads into looking at what we can do to support that by trusting our people more. As part of that, we want to have a commissioner who can shine a spotlight on the thematic issues—in effect, issues that affect our people and their families.
I do not see that as in any way challenging the chain of command. I see it as an ability for the chain of command to deliver their functions in a more efficient manner by having a greater focus on the welfare needs of their people. That is a complementary function to the many welfare needs already undertaken by the chain of command, but especially in those areas where they otherwise might not have any levers. That is why we suggest that the commissioner report to Parliament—via a necessary sifting of national security scrubbing of reports by the MOD—so we can shine a spotlight on that.
In opposition and in government, I have spoken to many people who are in the chain of command, and they have an absolute focus on improving the welfare of their people, but they do not always have the ability to improve all aspects of it. We therefore hope that the commissioner will assist. That is not the only area, but it is an important area—to ensure that parliamentarians of all parties may scrutinise where there is a deficiency in the welfare provision for our people and their families. That is what we hope to do with the commissioner.
Graeme Downie
Q
Luke Pollard: It is quite normal in legislation of this type for there not to be provision in primary legislation. It is certainly the intent of the Secretary of State and me to ensure that provision is given to that coming back, but I am aware of an amendment tabled by the Liberal Democrats in a similar way. I am happy taking that issue and having a discussion about what we can do to ensure that sufficient attention is given to any recommendations.
When we were drafting the legislation, we tried to ensure that where a Secretary of State who has not been involved with the origin of the Armed Forces Commissioner may be in post, they cannot put in place any obstacles to the proper scrutiny of the welfare needs of armed forces personnel and their people. The expectation is that the Ministry of Defence would respond to those recommendations; what we would need to establish informally, which does not require primary legislation, are the methods for tracking the recommendations.
Certainly, as a new Government, we are very aware that many of the recommendations made by the Defence Committee, for instance, to Government over the past decade sometimes have not even been responded to or had information provided back. As part of renewing the relationship between Parliament and the Ministry of Defence, we believe that enhancing parliamentary scrutiny of what the Ministry of Defence does will produce better outcomes both strategically and for our people, so that we will be able to respond to those recommendations from the Armed Forces Commissioner, HCDC and other bodies that report on the welfare needs of our people.
Graeme Downie
Q
Luke Pollard: The legislation has been drawn so that the decisions on what issues to take up—effectively which priority to look at and which sequencing issue will be looked at, certainly on the thematic side—are decisions for the commissioner to be informed by. Certainly, for a commissioner of this type, the challenge procedure would be via judicial review, which would be similar for other commissioners of this style if there was a serious challenge.
We are not trying to set an expectation that the commissioner will be able to undertake a thematic investigation immediately into every major topic. We have seen from the German model that the annual report may contain a large number of items or areas where they have received a form of representation—the German model calls it a petition, which does not quite work in the English translation—or where someone has written to the commissioner to raise a concern that is then used as a way of inputting feedback for the commissioner to make a decision on what to analyse. Clearly, given the quite considerable breadth of issues that fall under a general service welfare matter, quite a lot could be in there.
I am grateful to colleagues for raising particular concerns, such as housing and SEND. There is a lot that could feature. We have drawn the legislation purposefully so that that decision is made by the commissioner; it is not made by Government Ministers directing where it should be. It is for the commissioner to establish those procedures, and I would expect the first commissioner to do that.
Graeme Downie
Q
Luke Pollard: Defence is a reserved matter. It is appropriate that this legislation legislates for all the United Kingdom, but we are aware that some of the welfare matters are devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Indeed, across the overseas territories—with the exception of Gibraltar, which has a different legislative set-up from the other OTs—they might be the responsibility of a non-Westminster Administration. In those circumstances, we have chosen not to require those devolved Administrations to report or respond in the same way as we do for the Ministry of Defence to be able to lay the report, but we are using the same kind of principles that SCOAF, who spoke earlier, has, which is effectively an agreement that there will be a conversation with the devolved Administrations on those matters. I expect a constructive relationship, as similar roles have with devolved Administrations, but we have not specified a requirement for them to report back or to respond to the commissioner’s report.
What we are aware of, for instance, are issues around service housing at RAF Lossiemouth. That would be the responsibility of the local council in Scotland, as well as the Scottish Government. In those circumstances, if the commissioner was looking at housing in a Scottish context, you would expect them to make recommendations to the Scottish Government. I would expect them to have a dialogue with the Scottish Government to be able to deliver understanding, but the legislation grips on the Westminster Government, because defence is a reserved matter in that respect.
David Reed
Q
Luke Pollard: When we were in opposition, we were looking at the areas where our people in the armed forces and their families were experiencing difficulties. It fed into the broad question: why are so many people leaving our armed forces? Why is there a challenge on recruitment? Why is morale falling, and why has it been falling for the last decade? Although there is not one single reason for those—in many cases it is an aggregation of lots of different reasons—there was a general sense from the Secretary of State, me and other Members of the then shadow Defence team that there was a problem with the offer, or effectively the contract, between the nation and those who served.
We thought that having an independent person with the ability to articulate and advocate those issues to Government would be beneficial. I think that that reflects a concern that in some cases the issues, which we heard in the evidence today, are quite well known. The ability to shine a spotlight more clearly on those issues to prompt action was something that we were quite keen on.
We worked closely in opposition, along with officials in the Ministry of Defence since forming a Government, with the German Armed Forces Commissioner’s office. Dr Eva Högl has been exceptionally helpful in providing not just advice on the legislative underpinnings—she describes her version of this Bill as “perfect”, so it is quite a high bar for us to hit in scrutinising this—but the implementation of how the Bill works. That has given us an idea of how to ensure, when we are looking at a service welfare matter, that there is adequate scrutiny.
Also, by having those reports ultimately given to Parliament, we can avoid the situation that can sometimes happen in this place—where reports are given to Government and then sat on. That is what we are hoping to avoid by routeing it via the Ministry of Defence through a national security scrub, which I think everyone in this room would expect, then having it laid before Parliament by the Secretary of State within a defined time period. I am pretty confident about that.
We also looked at the SCOAF reports from the past that effectively asked for the own-initiative powers. I think it is quite hard for an independent role like SCOAF, albeit within the Government orbit, to engage directly with the Opposition in that respect, but I have been grateful for Mariette’s engagement since the introduction of this Bill, looking at where it can reflect the objectives that she may have for own-initiative powers and how that would work.
That is effectively the origin of how we got here. We wanted this Bill to be one of the first pieces of legislation that the new Government proposed to Parliament, because we wanted it to be a signpost, signal and statement of intent to our people who serve that we recognise that there has been an erosion of the contract between them and the nation, and we want to do something about it. It will take some time to mobilise this office, assuming a standard journey through parliamentary scrutiny. We are hoping that the Armed Forces Commissioner’s office will be stood up at the start of 2026, which gives some time for procedures and policies to be put in place, as well as a decent appointment process that includes a proper opportunity for the House of Commons Defence Committee to scrutinise anyone who may be selected at the end of that.
On your second question, I am happy to have a chat with you about how complaints would be made. When we held stakeholder events with service charities and veterans organisations around the time of First Reading, when the Bill was published for the first time, there was a question about whether there should be a super-complaint function; that is, charities being able to raise an issue. In legislation, you normally have to define who is able to do that. We did not want to create an insider group of charities and an outsider group of charities, where some would be able to do so and others would not. That did not feel like the right idea here.
However, we would expect the commissioner to have regular dialogue—structured, formal, informal; however they see fit—with the wider armed forces community to listen to their concerns to make sure that it works. The first commissioner will establish those processes and procedures. It is up to them to define what those are, including complaints procedures and the other normal running of an office like this. We have not specified them in legislation, partly because it is unnecessary to do so in primary legislation, but also because they are the minimum requirements for a proper, functioning office, very similarly to how SCOAF, the Information Commissioner, the Children’s Commissioner and other similar roles across Government work now.
Pam Cox
Q
Luke Pollard: You could argue that we are doing both. The SCOAF function has wanted own-initiative powers for quite some time, but there was a sense that simply giving additional powers to the Service Complaints Ombudsman, a system that scrutinises a formalised and legislated-for complaints system, was not quite the way to exercise the own-initiative powers—the thematic investigations. That is why we have created a new office, effectively rolling in the SCOAF, but being clear that there is a change that improves the scrutiny function and provides a massive expansion of the opportunities for service personnel and, for the first time, their families. As a result, it needed to be named accordingly to demonstrate that change. In theory, we have delivered a better SCOAF as part of this function and a broader Armed Forces Commissioner opportunity.
We have not amended the SCOAF legislation at this stage. As I mentioned, if amendments are required there will be an opportunity to make them in the armed forces Bill that will follow. This sets the broad parameter that there should be own-initiative powers and independent persons to advocate on behalf of servicepeople. That is why the legislation has been drawn up as it is.
Pam Cox
Q
Luke Pollard: I think I picked that up in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar. I am happy to have a look at what that could be like. It is not normal for it to be in every piece of legislation that we would respond to reports. The normal process within Government is that there would be a response. But I am happy to include my hon. Friend in the conversations I am having to try to work out whether it is a requirement to add that to primary legislation, or whether a commitment to respond, as would normally be the case, would be sufficient to address those concerns. I am happy to have a conversation.
Helen Maguire
Q
Luke Pollard: We have deliberately drawn the powers to be quite limited. The Secretary of State can restrict access only on national security grounds or where there would be a danger to a person. The example that might work there is visiting the frontline during combat operations. There would clearly be a danger to our people if there were to be a formal visit, and there would probably be a danger to the commissioner in that situation. That gives a prudent safeguard power.
We have deliberately tried to separate the powers that might normally exist for the Secretary of State from this role so that there is more independence for the commissioner. By establishing a novel route to Parliament, we have also provided Parliament with greater ability to raise any concerns. If the commissioner encounters any difficulties with interactions with the Ministry of Defence or other providers of services for our people, they are able to raise that in their reports. Those are then given to Parliament to be able to independently scrutinise, separate from the MOD.
What we have tried to do is to separate those functions out. I think we have succeeded in doing that in the Bill. The style of how that will happen in practice will depend on the person appointed to the office and how that office is established. However the principle of impartiality and independence from the Ministry of Defence—and, importantly, from the single services—is at the heart of this legislation. The legislation is designed to build trust, so that people can go to the commissioner if they want to raise a concern.
Helen Maguire
Q
Luke Pollard: The hon. Lady is a relatively new Member in this House. If she had been here over the last seven years, she would have seen this massive gay over here—me—speaking loudly about equality matters. I feel incredibly strongly about this. From an armed forces point of view, we should value all our people. That is the intent of this Bill: to provide an opportunity for all our service people and their families—a cohort of people absolutely essential for the delivery of our national security who have often been forgotten in legislative and some MOD approaches in the past.
There is already a public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010 that would apply to the commissioner. When the commissioner was undertaking their reports, they would be bound by that duty to have due regard to the different minority groups that form the armed forces and families. I would expect that to be present. If looking at some of the equivalent reports we have seen, there would be an opportunity for the commissioner to look at the experience not only of the whole armed forces but groups within it—however those may be defined. There would be an opportunity for the commissioner to make that distinction in experience, not just in determining what issue to raise but also how they investigate it. I would expect that to be front and centre. If it is not included, I would expect Parliament to be able to scrutinise and ask questions of the commissioner in due course.
Helen Maguire
Q
The Chair
Briefly, please.
Luke Pollard: I would expect them to have regular meetings with the chain of command—senior officers, base commanders, and people who form the rank and file of all our services. I think it is important the commissioner has the ability to decide who to interact with, and the ability to not only have interactions but—as set out in the legislation—to request information from the Ministry of Defence. It is not only about the ability to hold conversations, dialogue and engagement but to actually get the information required to inform their recommendations.
Amanda Martin
Q
Luke Pollard: With the exception of the Atherton review, which was a House of Commons Defence Committee report—a very good one—most of those reports have been externally commissioned: often commissioned by the Government to report on an issue they had chosen. The point of the commissioner is that they would not be informed by ministerial priorities or by looking at the areas the Government of the day wanted to look at; they would be informed by the representation that they received from armed forces personnel and their families. I think that is a really important distinction.
In many cases, reports have been commissioned but things have not necessarily been done. This legislation provides a route for parliamentarians to receive the report and to be able to raise questions and concerns. I would expect the commissioner to be a regular attendee of the House of Commons Defence Committee. It would be for that Committee to determine how, when and in what format that would take place, but I would expect there to be a brighter spotlight on those issues, precisely to stop these reports and recommendations being long-grassed, as we might have seen over the last decade.
Terry Jermy
Q
Luke Pollard: I am. The reason we have drafted the legislation as we have is to be absolutely clear about a separation of this commissioner’s office from the Ministry of Defence. I think the point that Mariette was making in her evidence is that the funding has to come from somewhere. However, I think it is the way that the commissioner is appointed, how they operate and how they build trust and confidence with our people that will build the independence in the role.
We can legislate for independence and separation, as we have done, but it is the operation of the role that will build trust with the people. That is why I will expect the commissioner to be on the road, visiting our forces and having those conversations, in order to build the trust. I will expect them to have a robust scrutiny process in terms of their appointment, and to be able to give Ministers a tough ride on the delivery of the issues that matter.
That is the reason we are doing this. If this role did not have any teeth, there would be no point in legislating for it. I want this role to be able to carry a really bright spotlight, to shine on the issues that are affecting our people—because ultimately, if we do that, we recruit more people, we retain more people and more people want to rejoin our armed forces, improving morale and service life. That ultimately improves our operational effectiveness as a military.
Juliet Campbell (Broxtowe) (Lab)
Q
Luke Pollard: The Bill itself is not a stand-alone piece of legislation. It might be useful for hon. Members to understand that, effectively, it inserts legislation into the already existing Armed Forces Act 2021, which includes a section—I think it is section 340—that already includes the armed forces covenant. However, we did not want to specify the relevant family member in primary legislation; we wanted to be able to take more time to have conversations with stakeholders and define that through secondary legislation.
If the definitions were to change in the future, that could change. We have seen that the question of what a family is has changed. For me, a family is the most important unit of society, but what and how it is will be different for every different family. We are trying to find the right definition. I imagine the commissioner will have a view on that, and they can then make recommendations on that basis. That is why there is the option of being able to revise the definition via secondary legislation, which is an easier process than undertaking primary legislation—and the Armed Forces Bill comes round only once every five years.
Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)
Q
Luke Pollard: There is an obligation in the Bill for the Secretary of State to co-operate with the commissioner to provide information. “Secretary of State” means that the whole organisation under the Secretary of State also has that obligation placed on them. I expect that, on appointment, the processes and functions will be established, just as they are with the current SCOAF function, in terms of being able to request information—who that goes to, how that should happen, and what the processes and procedures are to enable that to happen.
If there are any obstacles or failure to deliver, which I think is what my hon. Friend is getting at, the Bill allows the commissioner to report that to Parliament in their annual report: effectively to say, “There is a problem here”. That would provide the parliamentary scrutiny, which, for any future Secretary of State, would be a deterrent against failing to provide the necessary information. Equally, we put a power in the Bill for the Secretary of State to have to report to Parliament if they dismiss or remove the Armed Forces Commissioner, to enable that scrutiny function of Parliament as an oversight for the work of the Executive.
Andrew Ranger
Q
Luke Pollard: I would expect the Bill to complete early next year. I would expect the appointment process to take roughly a year, and the office to be stood up as a commissioner’s office at the start of 2026, taking cases and, importantly, ensuring that all SCOAF cases are smoothly transitioned without any detriment to the individuals in that process—from the SCOAF function into the Armed Forces Commissioner function—to make sure there is no loss of any of that provision.