Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Baroness Smith of Newnham

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 3— I will refer to Amendment 5 later—is like Amendment 4 in the sense that it covers parliamentary oversight of the appointment of the Armed Forces commissioner. It does so in different ways, but Amendment 3, standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, puts forward one way of achieving this.

In the Second Reading debate on the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill in the House of Commons, much play was made of the fact that the Armed Forces commissioner will be akin to the German armed forces commissioner. My right honourable friend John Healey, the Secretary of State, said:

“The role is inspired by the long-established German parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, which enjoys cross-party support in the Bundestag and support across the military”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/24; col. 75.]


He then went on to quote the present commissioner for Germany’s armed forces, who welcomes and looks forward to the new Armed Forces commissioner being installed in the UK.

Here, my noble friend the Minister also referred to the inspiration from Germany for the Armed Forces commissioner when he said this at Second Reading:

“The Bill was inspired by the long-established and successful German parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, who has been championing and providing a voice to Germany’s armed forces for almost 70 years … Our proposed Armed Forces commissioner, like the German commissioner, will have the power to consider the full breadth of general welfare issues that may impact service life”.—[Official Report, 5/3/25; col. 302.]


So, really, the spark that has done this is the German system.

I have to say, that is where it departs a little. The German system looks at the thematic issues that will be the remit of the new commissioner and she can also look at general service complaints, but the way in which the German commissioner is appointed is very interesting and very different from what is being proposed in this Bill. At the moment, this is what is proposed in paragraph 3 of the new schedule to be inserted by Schedule 1:

“The Commissioner is to be appointed by His Majesty on the recommendation of the Secretary of State”.


So the Secretary of State will be the person who appoints this person and decides who they should be, but the German system is very different. The German armed forces parliamentary commissioner is established under the German Basic Law, which was framed in 1949 and, I think, clarified in 1956. The Bundestag parliamentary commissioner has some of the same remit as the proposed commissioner in the UK but there is the force of federal law behind him or her.

Then, we come on to how the German commissioner is appointed. They are elected by the Bundestag, whose website says:

“The Bundestag shall elect the Commissioner by secret ballot with a majority of its Members”.


It goes on to say that candidates may be put forward

“by the Defence Committee, the parliamentary groups”

or groups of members of the Bundestag for this purpose. It says that there should be no debate and that there is a simple vote. It also states:

“Every German who is entitled to be elected to the Bundestag and has attained the age of 35 shall be eligible for the office of Commissioner”.


Although my noble friend and the Secretary of State have argued that this would be akin to the German system, I am not sure that it is, given the powers, process and parliamentary scrutiny that it has. Am I surprised that, in drafting this, they have ignored the bit about Parliament? No, I am not, because the Executive are never keen on giving up power or ceding it to Parliament. I have no doubt that, following this debate, the Minister’s civil servants will come up with umpteen reasons why this cannot be done and, if it was, that somehow the earth would stop spinning and the sun would stop rising.

I have known my noble friend for many years and, as I always like to be helpful, I point out that there is a precedent already in the UK in the appointment of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. I was not aware how he or she was appointed until I looked it up, but it is very much Parliament’s responsibility to appoint that individual. It is an open competition, and there is then an interview panel and final selection, which is done by the chair of the PACAC—the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee —an experienced ombudsman, and an independent panel. In that case, Parliament, via the role of those two individuals, has a direct say in selecting that person, so I am sure that we could come up with some system whereby Parliament could have a more direct say in who this person will be. It is a new role, and if the Government are arguing that they want to mimic or mirror the German system, Parliament needs to have a role in it. As the Bill stands, it has no role at all.

I know that, in Amendment 4, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, puts forward an alternative method of involving Parliament. We need to look at ways in which this could be achieved because, without it, the question of who the individual is—I will come on to this later regarding finance—could be at the behest of the Government of the day. If we are trying to give the impression that this person will be independent and accountable to not only the Armed Forces but the general public, and have an oversight role, having Parliament in that process is important. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, and I suggest that, before the nomination is sent to the King, it should go through both Houses of Parliament. That would give at least some oversight of the mechanism.

Amendment 5, which is also in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, is about the tenure of office, where again the Bill tries to mimic the German system but does not quite do it. Under the Bill as currently outlined, the tenure is a five-year term that can be extended but only for another two years. I wonder where they got the extra two years from. I think that was a suggestion in an annual report from one of the existing ombudsmen, but why two years? Amendment 5 proposes that the tenure should be up to two five-year terms. That would be in line with the German system, which is a five-year term that can then be repeated for another five years.

I accept that, with public appointments, it is important to get a turnover of people, but with this role, first, it is a new role. Secondly, the individual is not going to be a member of the Armed Forces or a civil servant, so he or she might have to take a long time to get themselves up to speed with the way in which our Armed Forces are structured and operate. That is before, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said, they get their head around the complex nature of the Armed Forces family.

The option of having an extra five years would be better. You only have to look at the workload in the present ombudsman’s report, which has seen something like a 25% increase in complaints. If this person is going to be hit with that from day one, they are going to be very busy. Added to that role—remember that this is a new and extended role—they will do thematic reviews. An obvious one would be on initial recruitment, for example. However, we have looked at this in the past in terms of the Nicholas Blake report into the sad deaths around Deepcut. The House of Commons Select Committee also did quite a major report on that back in 2006. It is sad that some of those things have not changed.

It would be in order to extend that person’s tenure. It would also allow the individual to get a quicker under- standing and be able to follow through on reports. I think some of these thematic reports will take a long time to go through. If they are going to make a change and have weight, they are going to have to be done thoroughly without a time limit that means it will be passed to a new commissioner or, somehow, they will run out of time.

All I will say to my noble friend is that I have looked at the German system; this is not the German system. It can be nearer to the German system if we make some amendments to it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 4 and 21, which are in my name. As the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, pointed out, in some ways Amendments 3 and 4 are trying to bring a parliamentary dimension to the appointment of the Armed Forces commissioner. I fully agree with everything the noble Lord said on Amendment 3.

There is no objection from these Benches to Amendment 3; it seems a very reasonable amendment. Indeed, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, is wrong, and the Box—although there is not officially a Box in Grand Committee—officials are not going to be able to give the Minister a bit of paper to tell him that there is no way on earth there can be a parliamentary vote. Some sort of statutory instrument and a negative or positive approval in both Houses seems to be de minimis. I would hope that His Majesty’s Government will think seriously about allowing some parliamentary involvement in the appointment of the Armed Forces commissioner.

One of the problems I envisage with the straightforward negative or even a positive assent is that normally in Grand Committee, when we have a statutory instrument, it feels a little bit like the Scottish play:

“When shall we three meet again?”


Very often, it is the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for the Labour Benches—now the Government Benches —and either the noble Earl, Lord Minto, or the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and me. Very often, there is nobody else other than officials who are required to be here looking at statutory instruments. If we are talking about a serious role for Parliament looking at the appointment of the Armed Forces commissioner, I would like to advocate for a stronger role, which may include a committee as outlined by Amendment 4.

Amendments 3 and 4 are almost different models of how to make an amendment. The one from the Liberal Democrat Benches almost looks as if my colleagues, in drafting it, came up with something from the European Parliament, which is extremely detailed about what is happening. The noble Lord, Lord Beamish, has done something that is nice, skeleton legislation in the true Westminster style. However, I suggest that including a committee’s involvement—most logically the House of Commons Defence Committee, and maybe also the opportunity to speak to the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee—could be an important way of ensuring that the commissioner is a robust appointment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

Again, this goes to the heart of the issue of independence. I accept that the Government wish to ensure that this individual and the office are independent and cannot be influenced, or have their work affected, by the Ministry of Defence. But at the moment the Bill says:

“The Secretary of State may make payments and provide other financial assistance to the Commissioner”.


I am sure my noble friend will turn around and say, “Well, it would be unheard of for a Secretary of State to withhold money”—in a minute I shall come on to an example of where this actually happened. But I learned a long time ago in local government that, if you control the purse strings, you control a lot of influence in terms of how you can affect the actions of any public body or any activity.

Again, referring to the German system, I accept, as my noble friend said—that this is not a direct copy of the German system. But there are safeguards in the German system because it says in the federal law there that the necessary staff equipment is made available to the commissioner for the performance of his or her functions, and it is a separate piece in the Bundestag’s budget. This is the budget that is drawn up by the Bundestag. It is a draft budget that is done by the Council of Elders and is then agreed to by the Bundestag. So, again, Parliament has a direct say. It has not been down to a Minister to decide that the Armed Forces commissioner will or will not get the finance, which is very different to what we are proposing here.

My noble friend said in the Second Reading debate and again today that the difference is that this will be put on a statutory footing and, therefore, that will make all the difference. It will not. The Intelligence and Security Committee is on a statutory footing under the Justice and Security Act 2013. I presently chair the committee, and it has not had its budget raised for the last 10 years. It has now got to a point where crisis talks are taking place over whether we can carry out our functions as a committee. That is because the previous Government took a clear decision not to increase the budget, even though we asked for moneys to be brought forward. So, again, just because things are on a statutory footing that does not mean that somehow they will be insulated from a future Secretary of State or Government —I am not suggesting that my noble friend or the Secretary of State would do this—who may not like what the commission is doing and may say, “We’re not going to give you another increase in your budget”. That is the death by a thousand cuts that has happened to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Likewise, I presume that the budget is within the remit of the MoD. I have not been a Minister in the Ministry of Defence, but I know the battles royal that there are over different priorities in the defence budget. That makes you wonder who would be arguing for this within the defence budget if it is coming across other things. Trying to be helpful, I am looking for other examples for the Minister of where we could perhaps have a different system. A different system would be, again, my old friend the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, whose money comes from the Treasury and is part of the Consolidated Fund, so it is not in a departmental budget. That at least gives some protection for that money. But this is a serious point, and how this can be remedied needs to be looked at.

This is a simple amendment, changing “may” to “must”, but, without it, the individual in the role would, as I say, be very vulnerable. Who in the MoD is actually arguing for the Armed Forces commissioner in terms of budget? Are they arguing for this rather than for some piece of shiny new kit in a procurement round, for example?

If we cannot have this amendment, some thought needs to be given before Report on, first, how the budget will be provided and guaranteed; and, secondly, how this will somehow be ring-fenced. Without that, it will be easy to kill this off, either by not giving it any finance at all or by cutting its budget over a number of years. Those are my points and that is the reason for this amendment. With that, I beg to move Amendment 6.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments seems quite similar in form to the previous one. The noble Lord, Lord Beamish, has presented a modest amendment that would change “may” to “must”. The amendment I am speaking to is a little fuller; it would take more lines in statute. Although the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, is no longer in his place, I stand with some caution because I realise that my amendment runs to three lines.

Its purpose is very similar to that outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Beamish. In many ways, his amendment does the job, and does so very neatly. Nevertheless, I will clarify a bit more why we feel that it is necessary to put in the Bill that funding and resources will be made available to the Armed Forces commissioner. It is precisely because, if there is no clarity and certainty on that, all the ambitions in the Bill are in danger. The idea is that the Armed Forces commissioner will be more than a glorified ombudsperson and that they will promote the welfare of the Armed Forces’ serving personnel and relevant family members, as well as promoting the Armed Forces more generally. How will the commissioner do that if they are not adequately resourced?

The noble Lord, Lord Beamish, is absolutely right: this is a time of financial pressures. There is a real danger that the sort of role that can be cut is the role of the Armed Forces commissioner. Although I know that we have guarantees that defence expenditure will be increased and that we keep talking about the size of the defence budget, it is still very small, relatively speaking. If this post is being funded out of MoD funding, there is a danger that it will not be a priority. Maybe it is the role of the Minister for the Armed Forces to argue for this post and, at each budget round, to make sure that there are no cuts—death by a thousand cuts—but I would not be so sanguine.

I would like the Grand Committee at least to think about the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, and I are raising in our similar but different amendments; and to consider ways of ensuring that, if the Armed Forces commissioner is to be brought into place, they are able to do the job that His Majesty’s Government and this Committee want them to do and which the Armed Forces need them to do.