Armed Forces Personnel: School Fees

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a good point about the record on investment. He did a good job himself in ensuring that we had investment into schools such as The Duke of York’s. On the number of children, approximately 2,650 service personnel claim CEA for around 4,000 children. The figures that I have show that none have left the CEA system following this policy change. Five children out of those 4,000 have moved schools, but that is within the CEA framework.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, as one whose children benefited from the RAF allowances, as both my daughters embarked on their seventh school at the age of nine, I know how important these forces allowances are. It is good that the Government are reviewing them to see how they can support them, but I wonder about those military personnel who have children at the small independent schools that specialise in special educational needs or skills. They are most under threat from this, because the parents are very often not wealthy; they are hard-pressed and trying to do the best for their children. If those schools are forced to close, has any thought been given to the military children who might need to resort to local schools, where there will be no resources and no places for them?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a really important point. The maintenance of schools such as those that she has pointed to is exceptionally important, hence the rise that I mentioned in the continuity education allowance to meet the increase in fee. Of course, she also makes a really important point about special needs. She will know that if a member of the Armed Forces or service personnel believes that there are needs for a particular child over and above what the continuity education allowance makes possible, they can apply for an additional grant to help with the support for that child and their special needs.

Ministry of Defence: Equipment Plan

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to answer a question from my predecessor. She is absolutely right: we are looking at a 10-year timeframe and only 25% of expenditure is committed. We have a contingency budget in there of more than £4 billion.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, the equipment plan bandies around some interesting figures: the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, mentioned £16.9 billion, while I picked up £7.6 billion and £29.8 billion—obviously, precision is our watchword. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, picked up the very alarming word “Unknown” for the costs and, where they are known, they are deemed to be “unaffordable”. This is not a good projection. Can the Minister project a rather more accurate estimate of the financial cost? In particular, how does the MoD intend to meet the acute skills shortage gap? Without the skills, our brave military personnel are going to be lost.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. In fact, there is considerable investment in skills—particularly in the areas of nuclear and shipbuilding—within these figures, all of which are costed. She is absolutely right that the skills gap that the industry is facing is entirely being funded and down to government.

Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will be taking part remotely.

Clause 8: Armed forces covenant

Amendment 3

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is good to be back. In moving Amendment 3 in my name, I will speak to Amendments 5, 6 and 7. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for signing those amendments. I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, for tabling Amendment 4, which is extremely important, and the same as an amendment tabled in my name in Committee.

As I said in Committee, we support the aims of this Bill, but at present believe that there is a missed opportunity to deliver real improvements in the lives of our service personnel, veterans and their families. Like all noble Lords, we believe that the Armed Forces covenant represents a binding moral commitment between the Government and service communities, guaranteeing them and their families the respect and fair treatment their service has earned. In Committee, the Minister argued that central government in the Bill is unnecessary. She said:

“The Government are already subject to a legal obligation to report on the delivery of the covenant.” —[Official Report, 27/10/21; col. GC 194.]


But we all know that a reporting function is very different to a statutory provision ensuring that Ministers are subject to the duty of due regard. Ministers are arguing, as noble Lords will see in the Bill, that it is unnecessary for them, but necessary for local authorities, for NHS trusts, for NHS governors, and for a range of other public bodies to have a statutory duty to have due regard for the covenant. As said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, it is not only many of your Lordships who are dismayed that the Government seem determined to stand against ensuring that the due regard principle applies to central government, but the Royal British Legion and many others. They believe that the due regard principle should apply to central government in the way it applies to others. I am very supportive of the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay.

Service charities, including Help for Heroes, the Royal British Legion and the Army and Naval Families Federations are also concerned about the narrow scope of the covenant, concentrating as it does on education, housing and healthcare. Service charities have pointed out that this narrow focus could, in their view, create a two-tier Armed Forces covenant. That is why we have retabled Amendments 3, 5, 6 and 7, extending the scope of the covenant in the Bill to include employment, pensions, compensation, social care, criminal justice and immigration.

The Minister has explained that the new covenant reference group will evaluate the new duty. That is very welcome, and I thank her for that concession, but it is clear that the narrow scope of housing, healthcare and education does not go wide enough to stop all areas of potential disadvantage against members of the Armed Forces, veterans and their families. As the covenant reference group will have that new duty to evaluate how the covenant is working, how will the process of evaluation take place? For example, will it have to report to the Defence Committee on an annual basis?

Not extending the scope of the covenant is a missed opportunity by the Government, and I very much look forward to the Minister’s further justification of why they are resisting that. I also look forward to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, speaking to his Amendment 4, which I think is particularly important as it would extend the “due regard” principle to central government as well as the other public bodies mentioned in the Bill.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will not be taking part in these proceedings because she is double-booked in Grand Committee.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I have much sympathy with these amendments. Back in 2010, when I served in the Committee on the Bill, I proposed similar amendments, so noble Lords may ask why I now express some hesitancy about extending the remit. I suppose it comes from my experience as Minister for the Armed Forces and Minister for Defence Veterans, Reserves and Personnel. When we roll back the clock, if I am entirely honest, in the early days of implementing the Armed Forces covenant we struggled to get traction. It took some time to convince all the local authorities within the United Kingdom to sign up and indeed to get employers to sign up. I am delighted that now we have close to 2,000 signatories to the Armed Forces covenant.

My concern really lies around the fact that, as we continue to extend the width, we may struggle to get buy-in into this if we create yet more of a burden for local authorities in particular. Especially after Covid, as they have had a difficult couple of years, they might not see the benefit of this if we simply overburden them with yet more categories. My suggestion in Committee was not that we should not extend the categories but that we should do it incrementally over a period of time. In many ways, had that been suggested today, I would have been happy to accept this amendment, but that is not the case, which is a shame. During that early stage of the process, we also struggled to demonstrate the benefits of this to veterans.

It is a shame that we have an Armed Forces Bill only once every five years because I do not want to have to wait another five years to slowly extend the remit of the covenant. However, I simply feel that at this stage such a step would be a bit too much too soon, for the reasons that I have tried to explain.

Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister and join in the tributes to our Armed Forces. I wish to raise two points in connection with this Bill. I recognise that it is a routine Bill, but it gives us an opportunity to raise issues of concern.

My first point concerns the ombudsman. I have been given evidence of a case in which the ombudsman’s ruling was apparently overturned by the very senior officers who were comrades of the object of the complaint. Can the Minister assure us that there is now a cast-iron method of totally impartial complaint in which complaints against senior officers cannot be overturned by the might of the military machine?

I raise my second point because the Bill says it is

“to make provision about war pensions”.

There is virtually nothing about war pensions in the Bill, but the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, has raised some anomalies and I wish to raise another. I am a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association, and the Minister is well aware of—and, I think, sympathetic to—the issue I wish to raise yet again.

Time was when military widows automatically lost their widows’ pensions if they remarried—obviously this edict was made entirely by men; no women, let alone widows, were allowed anywhere near it. It was also a time when the military made no pretence at being caring: wives were tolerated as long as they were camp followers, but woe betide them if they fell out of line. Happily, those days have largely gone. Many widows would be very young; servicemen often die young. The only support and legacy they had from the men who had died in the service of their country was the pension those men had left them. I well remember when my husband—as a young RAF pilot who had seen too many of his comrades meet an early death, and who paid as much as he could into the widow’s element of his pension—told me that if he died, not to remarry and lose all the contributions he had made but to live in sin and be happy. The terminology will tell noble Lords that this was a very long time ago. Of course, for his last three years he was a Member of your Lordships’ House, so happily he did not die as a young pilot.

Then, of course, the Military Police caught up with those living in sin, who we had to then call “cohabitees”, and they too lost the meagre pensions from their dead husbands. How cruel. How mean. For many of those women, that money was the only money that they held in their own account, so what penny-pinching politicians thought this was a caring saving on the public purse? Women who had lost their men—who had died doing their duty—were targeted to lose the pensions that were the last gestures from dutiful dead husbands.

For most military widows this cruel edict has now been cancelled, but there is a small and dwindling group of ageing widows who fell between legislation and who have not had their pensions restored nor any financial recompense. We are told that it is impossible to restore pensions retrospectively, but is it really beyond the brains of the MoD and the Treasury, where we do have some very bright people, to find a way of giving some sort of financial compensation to this last, small group of deprived and elderly widows? We are left with the conclusion that the MoD is waiting for them all to die off, for the problem to go away. Is this really the face of the caring military family?

I once again appeal to the Minister, who I know to be a caring person, to go back to the MoD and the Treasury and ask again for some form of financial help for these widows who lost their men and who, when they dared to find happiness in a new relationship, lost their entitlement to pensions. The total sum would be a pittance against an eye-watering aircraft carrier and would be greeted by such enthusiasm from all military widows, and indeed all the military community that cares. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I continue to live in hope, and I assure her that the War Widows’ Association will not give up on this campaign for justice for their peers.

Cadet Forces: Funding

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, for once again drawing the attention of the House to the cadet forces. He is a great champion of cadets and his enthusiastic support is greatly appreciated. I declare an interest as I chair the cadet health check team and my late husband started his brilliant RAF career with the cadets. He had a gliding licence and a pilot’s licence while still at school and always took a keen interest in the cadet force as he progressed up the ranks.

I followed that interest. For some years I have been a member of the council of the Air League which supports air cadets and other young people fascinated by aviation. The Air League offers scholarships and bursaries for flying, gliding, engineering and drones. It aims to change lives through aviation, particularly for disadvantaged and disabled young people, wounded and injured service men and women and now veteran offenders. The Air League’s recent Soaring to Success initiative, in partnership with Barnsley Council in South Yorkshire, saw a pilot project. Some 600 young students aged 14 to 16 attended an event organised by the Air League and a number of aviation and aerospace companies, including British Airways, DHL Aviation and Rolls-Royce. Some then obtained a fully paid short training bursary to participate in an air experience day at gliding clubs in South Yorkshire and the Peak District, nearly 170 were awarded a flying lesson and the most eligible were selected to fly a powered aircraft.

The purpose was not to train young people to be pilots as such, but to cause students to believe that such an achievement was possible and inspire others to do so too. More than 1,000 young people have been involved in the programme so far and we are aiming towards over 3,000 each year in the future. The video of these youngsters was inspirational: the sense of achievement and palpable pleasure from young people unused to achievement or praise made us realise that the social impact of these activities is immense, especially since the driving force is to encourage aspiration and achievement. Of course, the Royal Navy and the Army have similar exciting programmes too.

Our role on the health check team is normally to visit as many cadet meetings and camps as we can. This year, of course, that has not proved possible. As the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, indicated, we have been heartened to be invited to virtual meetings to witness the wonderful enthusiasm and engagement of cadets and the inspiring adults who give so much time and energy to ensuring that young people get cadet opportunities. The ingenuity of the activities was mind-boggling, and the cadets responded by turning up smartly in uniform on Zoom and throwing themselves into whatever exercise or activity was proposed.

Of course, many of the most senior military personnel started their careers with the cadets, both men and women, so we always hope that funding is secure, but perhaps the Minister can say something about cadet accommodation, some of which is very substandard and dilapidated.

Our health check team was very grateful to the University of Northampton, which again the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, mentioned, for the independent report on the social impact of the cadet forces, which concluded that expenditure on the cadet forces was

“a very good use of taxpayers’ money that supports social mobility and community cohesion”,

and that particularly for cadets who suffer economic and other disadvantages

“it is very possible that being a cadet is … a key factor that enables them to achieve positive life outcomes.”

Among the benefits the report named were “reduced vulnerability”, for example to bullying and to criminal or extremist organisations, “increased social mobility” and “enhanced employability”. Surely these are all very good things for our young people. Of course, there are benefits for the hard-working adult volunteers who support the cadets. Adults and cadets can now access qualifications. These, too, can be life changing.

I am proud and delighted to be involved with the cadets. I trust, with the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, that they will increase and flourish along with all the benefits they bring to society.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has withdrawn, so I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Morrow.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 26th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dannatt (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is with predictable disappointment, but no less determination, that I return to commending to your Lordships the amendment in my name to establish a duty of care standard. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that in Committee and on Report this amendment stood in the names of the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Boyce and Lord Stirrup, thus reflecting support from former Chiefs of Staff of all three armed services.

It is fair to say that this overseas operations Bill has had something of a troubled passage through Parliament. It is extraordinary to note that the Minister piloting the Bill in the other place has now left his appointment as the Minister for Defence People and Veterans. What that says about smooth, joined-up government is a matter for speculation.

Notwithstanding the welcome concessions made by the Government this afternoon pertaining to our obligations under international law and Britain’s reputation as an upholder of a rules-based international community, the Bill is also about the wider interests of the people Mr Mercer in the other place sought to champion—namely, our defence people and veterans. The serving and veteran communities have been looking to the Bill to provide better protection from repeated, extended and vexatious investigations and possible prosecutions following their service overseas on deployed operations.

No one suggests for a moment that anyone is above the law. Indeed, soldiers take up arms only to protect the law, but when this new Bill passes into law it will singularly fail to provide the protection that serving and veteran members of the Armed Forces believe it should provide. For this reason, the duty of care standard amendment has been tabled to improve this Bill and enable it to achieve one of its original objectives. That it has been consistently opposed by government Ministers and the government majority in the other place is both puzzling and disappointing.

If the Government argue that the Bill as drafted would give serving and veteran members of the Armed Forces the protection that they seek and do not accept my amendment, will they commit to issuing a clear statement down the chain of command and out to the various veterans’ organisations as to how the Bill benefits and protects them? Those who are serving or have served have the right to believe that their employer will protect their interests. The Government have brought forward or implied various reasons why they will not support this duty of care standard amendment. It has been suggested that such an amendment is not necessary, in which case I repeat my request for a clear statement of benefit to be briefed to serving and veteran members of the Armed Forces.

It has been suggested that setting out a duty of care standard will invite further litigation from Armed Forces personnel. As I have argued previously, this is an empty argument, as in the amendment the Ministry of Defence has the opportunity to draw up its own statement of a duty of care standard, then act within it. That sounds to me like sensible, good practice to me—not something to be fearful of.

It has also been suggested to me that setting out a duty of care standard would create an unfortunate precedent. That argument misses the point as well. The inclusion of an Armed Forces covenant in the Armed Forces Act 2011 illustrates that the Armed Forces are acknowledged to be in a different category of employment from civilian occupations. The Armed Forces covenant was crafted and designed to recognise and protect that difference, so the argument of creating a precedent is also an empty one. The Armed Forces are in an employment category of their own.

Finally, I believe I have every right to be fearful. If the Government are failing to protect their employees from repeated, extended and vexatious investigations arising from overseas operations, what chance do Northern Ireland veterans have of gaining similar protection? I am not holding my breath, despite often-repeated statements that legislation would be introduced to address that problem too. I beg to move Motion E1 as an amendment to Motion E.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I have not received any requests from unlisted speakers. Does anyone in the Chamber wish to speak? No. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, raises an important issue. Although we did indeed receive the Written Ministerial Statement, it did not go far enough. It is absolutely clear that the Government wish to make commitments to service men and women—the Bill was intended to do so—yet, when we get down to the details and requests to support the Armed Forces covenant and to ensure that the rights of service men and women and veterans are respected, the detail seems to disappear.

This amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, perhaps does not go far enough. Such a duty of care should arguably be for all service personnel, whether overseas or at home, and for all activities. Had the noble Lord tabled such an amendment, he would almost certainly have been told it was out of scope of the Bill. Therefore, this is in many ways a modest amendment but a very important one. If the purpose of the Bill, as the Minister has pointed out—and pointed out so many times in the earlier stages of the Bill—is to stop vexatious claims, investigations and so on that are deleterious to the health and well-being of service personnel and veterans, the least the MoD can do is to commit to supporting service personnel and veterans going through the difficulties of investigations and prosecutions.

It is a limited but very important amendment. I am sure the Minister has been listening, because she has done a fantastic job of listening to us over many hours of debate. But if she has been listening, she has not yet yielded any ground whatever. Might she feel able to move at all? Otherwise, I suspect I will follow the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, through the virtual Lobby to support this amendment.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th April 2021 Lords Chamber

Amendments 18 and 19 not moved.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 20. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.

Schedule 1: Excluded offences for the purposes of section 6

Amendment 20

Moved by

Cadet Forces

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

I reassure the noble Lord that we shall support them in every way that we can. As he is probably aware, there is a youth and cadets team within the Reserve Forces and cadets division of the MoD, which engages with the DCMS and the National Youth Agency in England. We are doing everything that we can to consult, collaborate, co-operate and support.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the cadet health check team, where we have seen tremendous commitment, creativity and sheer hard work from staff and cadets, in creating inspirational online activities in lockdown. As has already been mentioned, the cadets are particularly important for disadvantaged young people, who learn skills, self-respect, leadership and other qualities through active engagement with others. The Minister’s previous answers suggest that she might not be able to say, but what more particularly do school cadets need to do to convince people that they can resume their life-changing work?

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

As the noble Baroness understands, the environment of a school is within the jurisdiction of, initially, the head teacher of the school and, secondarily, the Department for Education and its counterparts within the devolved nations. There is a recognition of the valuable work that cadets do and a universal desire to support their return to face-to-face activity.

War Widows Pensions

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

I echo the sentiments of the noble Lord and share the sentiments of my colleague Johnny Mercer. The noble Lord is realistic in recognising that the difficulties to which I have referred are not of the MoD’s making. He gives a powerful message. I am sure it will be relayed, and I shall play my part in promoting its relaying.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I too am a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association. As a military wife I moved 24 times, so I had no chance of a career. Military wives were totally dependent on their husbands’ incomes and pensions. It was particularly distressing when the pension the husband had built up for his widow was cancelled if she remarried. With so few widows still in the frame of this cruel policy, how can the Government use retrospection as an excuse for inaction when the 2019 Northern Ireland victims’ payments Act allows payments to be made in respect of past periods?

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

I understand the noble Baroness’s frustration and anger and I have no wish to seek to diffuse that. All I can say is that the difficulty to which I have referred real: it is not of the MoD’s making, and the MoD is trying to find a way round it. I am not familiar with the scheme to which she refers, but I shall make inquiries about that.

War Widows’ Pension

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

The right reverend Prelate’s latter point is an interesting one. I understand that technically, the payment is a pension. As I said earlier, the difficulty confronting my department is not imaginary; it has confronted many Governments and has reached across all government departments. To be fair, the difficulty at the time of the change, which was welcomed in 2015, was reflected by the War Widows’ Association. At the time, it said that it understood the principle that legislation cannot have a retrospective effect. It realised that that was not unique to the association and its campaign, and that trying to change it would have been very difficult. I detect the strength of sentiment in the Chamber and reassure your Lordships that I undertake to relay that to the department.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest both as a military widow and as another vice-president of the War Widows’ Association. Service life means that families follow the flag and are regularly relocated. We ourselves moved 24 times in 30 years. As such, it is well-nigh impossible for wives—now widows—to have a career that earns them a pension, so they are entirely dependent on their husband’s pension entitlement. Therefore, was it not an act of real meanness that they lost that pension if they found happiness in a new relationship? Surely the Government cannot keep hiding behind the pretence of not being prepared to consider retrospection. It must be time to remedy this. The sum of money involved would be a pittance in the MoD budget.

[Baroness Goldie]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her role in this and her connection with the War Widows’ Association. I hear clearly what she says and I agree. She is absolutely right that the women to whom we are referring have made sacrifices: they were frequently required to be posted abroad and may have put their own careers on hold. I understand all that. I think the noble Baroness will be familiar with the difficulty because she was a government Minister at the time of the change. It is a difficulty over which I personally have no control. However, her voice is added to the chorus that I hear very clearly this afternoon.