Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Margaret Ferrier

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I will speak to Lords amendments 2 to 13.

In principle, I welcome the Bill, which will strengthen the legal basis for the armed forces covenant. The covenant represents a series of promises to the armed forces community—servicemen and women, reservists, veterans, and their families. The covenant covers a number of areas the community might need support in, such as housing, education and, vitally, healthcare. Most are devolved policy issues in Scotland and held at local level by councils and health boards. I have personally turned to the covenant when dealing with casework; I am sure many of us have. It is not necessarily easy to navigate, because responsibility for the things it covers is held in so many different places.

Lords amendment 2 to clause 8 would go some way to addressing that. It includes the Secretary of State in the list of specified persons within the scope of the covenant’s duty of due regard. Without this amendment, due regard will largely sit at local authority level, with no overarching duty placed on national Government. The amendment has been called for and supported by charities such as the Royal British Legion and Poppyscotland, which work with the very people the covenant seeks to support. They are perhaps best placed to tell us what is needed to make the covenant work in the way it should. The Royal British Legion and Poppyscotland say that in their experience the responsibility for the most prevalent issues faced by the armed forces community does sit at a national level.

I know from personal experience of helping veterans in my constituency that while healthcare definitely sits right at the top of the list of concerns, there are others that are just as important but reserved to the UK Government—for example, pensions. In one case, it took months of chasing, and my constituent had spent a year on it before reaching out to me, before satisfactory progress was made. I thank the Minister for the help that he gave in that case.

In summary, the covenant is an important tool if it is given the legal basis it needs in order to work in the way it should. The amendment moves us closer in the right direction by ensuring that responsibility for national issues is held at a national level. Consistency is key.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I rise as a supporter of the military justice system. The problem here is the idea that anyone seen to be supporting amendment 1 is somehow against the military justice system. Well, I am not. I have served on every single Armed Forces Bill Committee, as a Minister or Back Bencher, for the last 20 years, and I firmly recognise its importance.

However, the important thing is that we need to put the victim at the heart of the system, as Professor Sir Jon Murphy said in his evidence to the Select Committee, and that is not necessarily always the case in the military system. We had evidence from the Victims Commissioner and from retired Lieutenant Colonel Diane Allen, who also raised the role of the chain of command and the complaints system in stopping the number of complaints coming forward. This has got to take place, and I support Lords amendment 1, because we need to send a signal to young men and women in our armed forces that if they are a victim of serious sexual assault, for example, it will be taken seriously and be dealt with on par with what would be done in the civilian world.

I welcome the setting up of the serious crime unit, but I agree with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). I am not sure it will have the volume of work to get the expertise that is needed. Reference has been made to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) and her report, which I worked on as a member of the Select Committee. It is loud and clear: people are not coming forward with complaints, because they do not feel that the system is fair. If we back Lords amendment 1, it will send a clear signal.

As for the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), he is a bit like a lead actor in a play who seems to have been sat in the audience for the entire time during the play, because when he was in Committee, all he did was parrot the lines that were in front of him—if he could find the right page to turn to. I am sorry, but some of us will not take this nonsense, trying to rewrite history about his ineffective role as a Minister.

I also support Lords amendment 2. When I was Veterans Minister, I produced the Green Paper, which was the forerunner for how we got the welfare pathway into law. One thing was clear: Departments should be part of welfare, which surrounds the covenant, because increasingly the services are directly influenced by Departments. Housing in the armed forces is an obvious one, but health and others are increasingly involved. I therefore support amendment 2. The other thing about amendment 2 is that with this Bill we are putting the onus again on local government without any extra resources to carry those functions out.

Finally, I make one point to the Minister. One of the issues around speedy outcomes for justice in our military system has to be speedy investigations. It is an issue that I raised, and I know that Lord Thomas of Gresford raised it in the other place. I raised it in Committee. The Minister made some commitments to look at it, and I would be interested to hear what he has to say.