Armed Forces Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I am conscious that in the debate today there are many noble, and noble and gallant, Lords in the Chamber who have years of experience in this area. Indeed, until a few moments ago we had two distinguished former Secretaries of State for Defence in the Chamber, and there are a number of former Defence Ministers here today. There are many people here with far more expertise than I have. Furthermore, I thank the Minister for adopting an open-door policy about these measures. It is helpful to Members to know that they can go and have their concerns addressed in that way. I appreciate that.

I welcome the Bill, particularly the covenant, which I shall speak on. It has to be based on the following principle: if we ask a service man or woman to go on to the battlefield on our behalf, as we have been doing increasingly in recent years, that person should know that so far as is practicable, irrespective of where they come from in the United Kingdom, the services that they can rely on if things go wrong and they become hurt or injured in some way will be applied equally to them and their families. In other words, they will go into battle without that postcode concern at the back of their minds—they know that if they become injured they have a reasonable expectation of receiving the services that they need, wherever they may live.

I have some concerns, which I will come to in a moment, but they are exaggerated by the fact that, as I understand it, those who become injured now have a greater expectation of survival than would have been the case many years ago, such are the advances in battlefield medicine. That means that people are coming home—and thank God they are coming home—in many cases to face 50 or 60 years of disability, be it mental or physical. I have seen it in my own area with my own eyes: a triple amputee or someone with similar characteristics who has survived, who is mentally alert and fit but requires a lifetime of support. I am not sure that we as a nation have fully grasped the significance of the downstream consequences that a number of our services are going to face. I am not sure whether it has been costed out; I do not know how we would even begin to do so. However, we have an obligation to provide those people with the best services that we can.

The Bill is a first step. I see that in the other place an attempt was made to further codify this by the use of a phrase like, “Armed Forces charter”. An attempt was made to analyse and define more accurately what the covenant should consist of. However, I support the Government’s general principle that you can overplay your hand on this, and we need a degree of flexibility. So I am broadly content with the concept behind the covenant but I have some significant issues with the practicalities.

The Secretary of State has to make a report, and I welcome that, but, as many Members have already said, he is not in control of many of the services that he has to report on. Housing, health and education were mentioned, but the Bill provides that other issues could be brought to his attention. Issues concerning training have been mentioned. We know that unfortunately many returning service personnel collide with the justice system—disproportionately, I have to say—so there is a range of things on which the Secretary of State might find that a report is required.

One other issue is perhaps not highlighted as much, although the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, picked this up in a Question some weeks ago; that is devolution. Under devolution, virtually all those services are under the control of the devolved Administrations. The Secretary of State therefore cannot deliver a report to Parliament off his own bat unless he has the full co-operation of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly. In order to keep a level of service that is broadly equivalent, we need to work closely with the devolved Administrations, and the Minister mentioned that in his opening remarks.

I want to talk specifically about Northern Ireland. All those services are devolved there but we have to face the fact that there is not in all quarters the same approach, welcome or support for the armed services. We have a circumstance in Northern Ireland where in the key area of education we have a Sinn Fein Education Minister. I do not think that I need to paint the picture any further. We also have a technical issue in Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act, where people are required not to discriminate against people or to discriminate for them. There is an issue that needs to be dealt with there.

Lest people think that I may be exaggerating this, I want to point out that last year a colleague of mine in the Northern Ireland Assembly, David McNarry MLA, introduced an Armed Forces and Veterans Bill. It went through its procedures and had hearings through a committee. When it came to a conclusion in February this year, a petition of concern was signed by the nationalist Members of the Assembly that meant that it had to go to a cross-community vote where, of course, it would be vetoed. We do not have to speculate; we now know that there may well be difficulties in getting the co-operation of that Administration in preparing the report. I hope that that can be avoided and that it is possible to talk to the Executive and the Assembly to try to avoid any unnecessary and unseemly dispute over this issue, which is important to many families. I say to noble Lords that we do not have to imagine this; it has actually happened. As the then party leader, I encouraged Mr McNarry to bring in the Bill in the Assembly. We knew that the issue was out there and had to be dealt with, but unfortunately it became a casualty of the political dispute that exists.

I want to avoid all those disputes if possible, and it will be my intention to bring forward amendments at the next stage to try to do so. I want to go with the grain of the Bill, not against it, as was put to me by one of the Minister’s officials; I do not want to overprescribe it. Equally, though, the Secretary of State cannot allow himself or herself to find that they are able to bring in only a partial report because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, pointed out during her address, there are loose ends. It will be up to us at the next stage to try to resolve those loose ends. I put those matters before your Lordships.