Armed Forces Bill

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, as someone from the ranks, as it were, not having been a Defence Minister, I add my voice to those of former Defence Ministers and speak to Amendment 10 standing in my name. Other amendments in the group concern important matters such as who should prepare reports. My amendment concerns the more mundane but nevertheless important matter of a covenant with our Armed Forces which must note what improvement has been made to the dire condition of too many of the 44,000 forces family homes in the UK.

As noble Lords will remember, the housing was sold off but the MoD is responsible for repairs and maintenance. That is not necessarily a good deal. The MoD has not had the will or the funds to keep many of these properties in a good state of repair. It is clear to me from the inquiries I have made that the coalition Government accept that this problem goes back many years and recognise that something needs to be done. I also accept that in these times of cuts and reductions in expenditure there are unlikely to be sufficient funds radically to improve the existing housing stock. I hope that the purpose of my amendment is simple; namely, to think outside the box. If the MoD does not have the funds to carry out this work—I am told that it does not—and if the freeholder will not do the work because the properties were sold off to a housing association, we should look at other funding streams, as is the case with social housing in the public sector. The amendment is meant to be helpful in terms of directing thought towards other methods.

The amendment asks for a report on the progress being made between the Ministry of Defence and housing associations to improve the accommodation for servicepeople. I am sure that this is not an original thought, but I envisage a round table of housing associations active in garrison towns to build new homes for service personnel or to renovate existing stock to a high standard. A few minutes ago, at Oral Questions in the Chamber, people were reminiscing about World War II. For people of my age who were born during that war, the saying was “homes for heroes”, but I am afraid that we do not nowadays have “a fair deal for squaddies”.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 2, which is in my name and co-sponsored by the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Touhig. Perhaps I should begin with a mild apology for being slightly overdressed for this Room but, with the warning that there might be a Division, there would not be time to get backstage to get sorted out in time for that.

I begin by thanking the Minister for making so much time available earlier today in his “open house” at which this amendment was given the chance of some airing. It was a most constructive lead into this debate and confirms the willingness of Her Majesty’s Government to engage in dialogue over the Bill. At Second Reading, the introduction of Clause 2 was welcomed generally by this House. However, there remains a concern from a wide compass of people as to whether the reporting mechanisms envisaged in Clause 2 are sufficiently robust and adequately objective. In earlier debates and in the very helpful briefings arranged by the Minister, I have raised this issue.

Perhaps a key to our discussions is the covenantal relationship between the nation, the Government and the Armed Forces. Covenant is a concept with clear foundations within the Jewish and Christian religious traditions. Essentially, it is rooted in trust between various parties. Such trust is made secure only by setting the covenant within properly defined parameters.

This amendment seeks to address two issues. It is notoriously difficult for any institution or organisation to stand outside itself in an objective critical fashion. This is to expect more than is reasonable from either the Ministry of Defence or the Secretary of State. But a second issue is of equal importance. Vital in all our discussions is the proper, just and generous treatment of veterans, which has been referred to already today. The media have had a field day in the past couple of years in focusing on untreated post-traumatic stress disorder. This is of course a crucial matter to address but, as we have heard, the range of concern facing veterans runs far more widely than this alone. Included here will be issues relating to education, welfare and social security, and to areas relating to social services—family breakdown or even homelessness.

It is unrealistic to expect the Ministry of Defence and thus, by virtue of that, the Secretary of State, to have the ability to respond in each of these areas, including health and notably post-traumatic distress. The MoD has neither the competence nor the facilities to cover this enormous range of challenging concerns. There must be one integrative reviewer who can bring together the resources of the various government ministries. This person will need to respond to individual cases effectively and to engage with local authority provision where necessary. These are matters which each of us will have seen testing the resources in all the localities in which we live.

This amendment aims to provide flexibility in response through the presence of the independent reviewer of armed services welfare. It would allow for such findings to be reported to Parliament annually. It may be that Her Majesty’s Government, in framing Clause 2, took some of these issues and proposals into account. If so, it would be good to know why such a reviewer was not included in the proposed legislation.

Once again I want to emphasise how encouraged I have been by the willingness of Her Majesty’s Government to take the military covenant so seriously and their being prepared to move things on. None the less, at present I am clear that further strengthening is essential if the numbers of our Armed Forces, both serving and retired, are to receive what they undoubtedly deserve. I do not intend to press the amendment at this stage—certainly from how I feel things are going so far this afternoon—but I shall bring the amendment back should that seem necessary at a later stage in the proceedings.

I am most grateful to my two co-sponsors, and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, for their encouragement and advice on this.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I have no doubt that the approach outlined in Amendment 2, spoken to by the right reverend Prelate, is one to which we should give careful consideration, which is why I put my name to it. For any report to Parliament on the operation of the military covenant to have credibility, it should be underpinned by an independent review of the welfare needs of both existing service men and women and our 5.5 million veterans. In that way the operation of the military covenant will be properly audited.

On Second Reading I was not alone, I think, in expressing concern that there are just three areas listed in the Bill on which the Secretary of State should report—healthcare, education and housing. The Secretary of State alone would decide whether to report on anything else. If Parliament enacts this Bill as it stands, there would be precious little opportunity for future Parliaments to do anything about the issues to be reported. It would be entirely a matter for the Secretary of State. In the coming years there might be many other areas of concern about the welfare of service men and women—and veterans—that should be included in a report to Parliament. The amendment tabled by the right reverend Prelate, if accepted, would afford that flexibility. In my experience, all too often Governments as a rule, Ministers in some instances, and the civil servants always like to have things buttoned down in legislation, leaving little room for manoeuvre or interpretation. I was a strong advocate for that when I sat on the other side.

The scope of this amendment would, I believe, better fit the need of implementing the covenant without being overprescriptive. Under the broad heading of “welfare”, it would be possible to widen the areas to be examined and reported on from the three specified in the Bill without the need to resort to further primary legislation.

I was also concerned on Second Reading to understand how the Secretary of State for Defence would, without being given some special powers, be able to examine and report on healthcare, education and housing for veterans when these responsibilities were held by other Ministers in the devolved Administrations and other bodies that are not answerable to him. I suggested at that time that the National Audit Office, for which I have a high regard, could carry out an independent audit. It has a fine track record and an international reputation for thoroughness. I took the view that such an audit could be presented to Parliament at the same time that the Secretary of State makes his annual report. I think that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas, also supported the idea of an independent audit when they spoke on Second Reading. My experience of serving on the Public Accounts Committee in the other place taught me that there is very much merit in monitoring and auditing new systems of service delivery, and the military covenant is certainly that, which is, of course, at the heart of this Bill.

I believe that appointing an independent Armed Forces reviewer, which this amendment proposes, dedicated to looking at matters concerning the welfare of service men and women and veterans alone, is even better than my suggestion of bringing in the National Audit Office.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Brookeborough]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendments in general and to support adding more regulations and putting legislation behind them. The covenant is a very old understanding and we are talking about it because it is not working. It could be said that it is operated under voluntary support by the different agencies and the different people involved. It has not operated very well and that is why we are discussing it now. We must legislate. When talking of the covenant in this Bill, there is far too much “in the opinion of” and somebody should pay “due regard to”.

We have to be sure that the covenant means something. When people have an obligation to provide specialist help in housing, health or anything else, we have to know whether they have or have not done it. It must not be swept to the back of the annual report for a particular region, unread and ignored. We are very well aware of that, especially in Northern Ireland. I do not wish to go back into aftercare services and that sort of thing, but we go outside medical care. We go into people’s lives to find out whether they need retraining. We go into helping them thereafter.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, said that there was a certain amount of linking-up and connection that did not always work. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned the covenant to serving people. I hope that our covenant to them is absolute from within the service because we know who they are and where they are. We know where we are sending them and everything about them. The covenant is equally important to veterans. We also have to do something about tying the Ministry of Defence into having a proper record of where those people are and of noting when they leave the service. The covenant relies on two parts: providing a service and a commitment that is honour-bound to those people. It must also have a way of making sure that they are connected with it. It is no good pretending that they leave the armed services with no injuries and bad effects from serving in Afghanistan, housing, or whatever. It is no good expecting those proud people to come crawling back to us for help.

Today in the Telegraph, I think, which I do not have with me, there is a small article saying that Combat Stress has done a survey—the same people that do the parliamentary one that we get, so they are perfectly well founded. The survey shows that a colossal percentage—70 per cent—of GPs are unaware of any links or effects between combat stress and the stressful conditions for ex-servicemen. I have said before that I can sell a bullock here that can go all the way round Europe and you can walk into any agricultural office to find out where it has been, what was wrong with it, and where it can go. Why is it that it is only recently that records have become available in civilian life on leaving the service? Unless you begged for them, they were incarcerated in Glasgow. Why is it that we have freedom of information about everything in our lives but have no freedom of information to find out whether a homeless person lying in the underpass at Knightsbridge is an ex-serviceperson? Something is clearly wrong. It cannot be an infringement of someone’s human rights that when you see a doctor about a member of your family who is too proud to say that something is wrong there is a red dot or something on the record so that the doctor can say, “Ah. I am aware that he is an ex-serviceperson. We have special ways and means of dealing with them”.

The covenant is very important but it needs legislation behind it. I think that we should demand that reports are made every year about how it is getting on. I also think that the MoD should be a lot more aware of who and where its veterans are.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, I, too, rise to support these two amendments, and indeed the spirit of what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said in his amendment. I wish to make a more general point and try to respond in part to the debate on my earlier amendment which got lost slightly in the excitement of all those votes. So many of the contributions seem to be saying things that resonate with each other, but most of them, if not all, celebrate the fact that the Government have taken action in establishing the covenant legally. At the same time it seems to me that there is a fairly clear sense of not quite consensus but a fairly considerable majority opinion from different people around this Room that things still need to be looked at further if the covenant is to be as effective as we wish it to be.

I do not want to repeat the points I or others have made, but between now and the Report stage, I hope very much that the Government will take these comments away. Clearly, if all these amendments were passed, they would duplicate or even collide with each other, but quite a lot of material has been offered throughout our debates today which suggests that there are ways in which the covenant could be more effective than it is as the Bill presently sets out. I hope that the Government will consider these comments before the Report stage so that we can see that we have moved on and do not have to come back with another set of amendments that try to address those areas where we feel that there are still vacuums.