Armed Forces Covenant

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, my amendment, with government support, to the Armed Forces Bill in 2011, inserted the section in the 2006 Act which requires the annual covenant report. This section refers to removing,

“disadvantages arising for service people”,

and,

“the principle that special provision … may be justified by the effects on such people”,

of their service. The Act requires the Secretary of State to have regard to those principles.

Earlier annual covenant reports made numerous references to disadvantages, but the recent report lays stress on treating people fairly. Fairness is a subjective and immeasurable concept, which bears too little relationship to dealing with or correcting a disadvantage; a disadvantage is more measurable. Morphing from disadvantage to fairness in the work of the covenant is confusing; it is agin the statute.

COBSEO and others in the recent report questioned a proposal to remove the service and medical members from the panel of the War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Tribunal. In 2008, I tabled an annulment Motion to an affirmative SI because it threatened to disband the then War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Tribunal and transfer its work to a social entitlement chamber—a totally inappropriate chamber. Before the debate on the SI, a Written Ministerial Statement said:

“The Senior President of Tribunals … requires the continued use of service members on hearing panels within the war pensions and armed forces compensation chamber and maintains their present role without diminution or alteration. … A decision made at a hearing of an appeal in this chamber will normally be dealt with by a three member panel of one judge, one service member and one medical member”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/10/08; col. 51WS.]

The Government changed their mind and retained a separate chamber. I moved my annulment Motion but did not divide on it.

Similar tribunals in Scotland and Northern Ireland remain tripartite. It would be an immeasurable disadvantage to have dissimilar tribunals to judge claims. Will the Minister assure the House that the 2008 tripartite tribunal arrangement for England and Wales is to be continued by this Government without variation or diminution?