Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Baroness Fookes and Lord Stirrup

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fookes]

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, has shot my fox because one of the points that I wanted to make—I will still aim another bullet at it—concerns the incomprehensibility of any one piece of legislation if one seeks to know what the law is on the subject. I share the noble and gallant Lord’s distaste for simply amending the previous Act. Unusually, we have the chance to amend the Act every five years for constitutional reasons that have already been touched upon. As it is the only piece of legislation for the Ministry of Defence, I would have thought it possible for the MoD to start to work on consolidation from now on so that when we next get to the five-year point we will have a Bill that is complete in itself. I once served on the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. It met but rarely. Here we have an opportunity to put the matter right, at least in one piece of legislation.

On the new part of the legislation on the Armed Forces covenant, I slightly disagree with another noble Lord who felt that there was a weakness in giving the Secretary of State considerable flexibility in what he might choose to bring into the annual report, which will be his duty. I think that can be a strength rather than a weakness. If something is too prescriptive, it is very easy to find a little way down the line that it does not cover what you wish it to cover. I prefer to give the Secretary of State a little more leeway. I regard this new arrangement as an experiment. I hope that we will develop, refine and improve it year by year. I do not look upon it as being totally static and never to be changed, but that we can improve upon it.

I have one or two questions for the Minister. First, other than the measures for education, health and so on that are already listed in the Bill, does he have anything else in mind at the moment? If he does not, perhaps I may make one or two suggestions.

One suggestion relates to the Chief Coroner. As far as I was concerned, the whole point about the Chief Coroner was that he was given the power to ensure that coroners engaged in military inquests had sufficient training. This was, and remains, a key point for me. I point out that although this was in legislation brought by the previous Government, it was introduced because they were virtually forced into it by the then Opposition losing the day when they had said it was not necessary. However, the balance is now redressed because my own Government are seeking to get rid of it altogether.

I suggest to my noble friend that this might well be an issue that the Secretary of State could include in his annual report. Ensuring that military inquests are dealt with by coroners with sufficient experience to do them properly could be one of his duties in the annual report. That would deal with a real worry that many people have felt. In the early days, when there were a number of deaths, the coroners did not have sufficient knowledge and experience of the Armed Services and their ethos, and this caused many of the families great strain, including of course to the war widows, of whose association I am very proud to be president.

That brings me to another issue. The reference committee—or whatever it will be called—which is going to advise the Secretary of State on the various issues that will form the basis of the annual report, does not seem to be in the Bill. I may be mistaken, but if it is not in the Bill it should be a statutory body. It might well need to alter its membership, but if it is not there, what is to stop a Secretary of State who is not particularly interested in all this discontinuing it? If the Secretary of State is to be fully informed, it is absolutely vital that he has all these inputs from bodies such as the War Widows’ Association and SSAFA Forces Help, of which I am a vice-president nationally. One of their strengths is that they deal with individual cases of servicemen, ex-servicemen and their families, so they are at the sharp end and know exactly what the problems are. That kind of information is absolutely vital if we are to have an annual report that means anything at all.

Another issue, which was raised by the BMA in a briefing to me and no doubt to other noble Lords, is medical reservists. They can be called up—at very short notice, of course—but they have found that in many cases being called up actually puts their primary career at risk, particularly if the NHS organisations with which they are associated are difficult about it or maybe have different policies. I suggest to my noble friend the Minister that that kind of difficulty could be ironed out as a result of the annual report. I am of course fully aware that—other noble Lords have made this point—in many cases the Ministry of Defence, and indeed other government departments, have no direct control over the actual people who are going to be helpful or otherwise: the doctors’ surgeries, those responsible for waiting lists, and so forth. I am not sure what the answer is to that, save that if there is a body of evidence that is very clear and well set out, it might have some influence as opposed to power. That is at least what I am hoping for; we shall have to see what the result is.

All in all the Bill is a very good development and I wish it well, and I hope that by the time we finish we shall have improved it with some constructive amendments.

[Lord Stirrup]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I wonder whether she will allow me just two seconds, for the sake of clarity, on her point about the need for flexibility in what the Secretary of State reports. I absolutely agree on the need for that flexibility; I was merely suggesting that there should be some marking of the way in which he exercises that flexibility.

[Baroness Fookes]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for that clarification.