Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome and support this Bill and I also warmly congratulate my noble friends Lady Pidding and Lord Shinkwin and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, on their excellent, very different and very personal maiden speeches. I enjoyed all three, and I thank them.

If you look after the families, you look after the soldiers—these are not my words but those of the noble Lord, Lord Richards, who knows much more about the military than I do. Although this Bill focuses on disciplinary and other matters, I urge the Minister to continue to look at the wider context of the military and their families as a whole. Earlier this week I was pleased to attend the launch of the Homes for Heroes foundation, which is looking to break down the barriers faced by forces personnel and their families in owning secure, accessible homes, if that is what they aspire to do. It is also looking at and challenging the rented sector, when our soldiers leave the military. There are still a number of local authorities inadvertently not following the covenant in determining their housing allocation policies. I urge the Government to ensure that the covenant is adhered to, across all government departments and across local government. These are early days for the foundation; I wish it well and look forward to seeing the results of its work.

I have now had time to see the strategy for forces families, as mentioned in the strategic defence and security review. While I am a little disappointed that the strategy did not consult more widely with forces families, or with public services as part of the delivery network, the important matter now is the creation of a strong action plan and the delivery of the aims of that review.

Alongside secure housing, good education and health provision for the military and their families is soldiers’ transition into civilian employment. It is extremely important for the stability of forces families that they receive the necessary training and support as they leave the Army to ensure that they can get into secure employment.

In Wiltshire, we have 15,000 troops—the number will rise by another 4,000 by 2020—and the employment of these soldiers as they leave the Army is of high importance to our county. It is also important to the economy of the county. The Swindon and Wiltshire city deal and the Higher Futures programme, will broker higher education training courses, created with a number of local businesses, to convert the military training already received by our forces to qualifications required by the private sector, thus enabling our military leavers to reach their full potential in civilian life. The enterprise network provides sensitive, supportive advice to forces spouses or military leavers who wish to start their own businesses, and our university technical college in Salisbury utilises great support from the local 1st Artillery Brigade and Headquarters South West to help our young people to develop their leadership skills. We run transition fairs annually with the Army, bringing together the businesses, the soldiers, and our support services.

I know that this does not fit entirely with the Bill, but I wish to reiterate: if you look after the families, you look after the soldiers. I believe that our Army is a better Army when our soldiers know that their families are secure and that they have a secure future.