Armed Forces: Vehicles
Lord Empey Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Empey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether fighting vehicles supplied to British troops in Afghanistan provide adequate protection against Taliban attacks using improvised explosive devices.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)
My Lords, the current range of fighting vehicles supplied to British troops in Afghanistan has been optimised for that particular environment and offers the most suitable form of survivability in that theatre of operations. However, no vehicle can currently withstand a blast of infinite magnitude and there will always be gaps in a vehicle’s protection. The strengths and weaknesses of the different types of platform that make up the vehicle fleet give operational commanders the option to mix and match capabilities and to tailor them for a specific operation.
Lord Empey
My Lords, we were all shocked by the tragic deaths last week of six of our service personnel in Afghanistan. Can the Minister assure the House that the flat-bottomed Warrior fighting vehicle is the most suitable equipment to protect our Armed Forces from improvised explosive devices? Can he further assure the House that financial constraints on the provision of equipment or modified equipment are not delaying the deployment to Afghanistan of the best possible protection for the brave men and women of our Armed Forces?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, my thoughts are also with the families and friends of those six soldiers. Every death and injury reminds us of the human cost paid by our Armed Forces to keep our country safe. The Warrior is optimised to protect our Armed Forces from IEDs and is suitable for the task that it is required to do. It has a good track record in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The protected vehicle fleet in Afghanistan comprises a mix of armoured capabilities, some of which have flat-bottomed hulls with tracks and others have V-shaped hulls with wheels. This provides commanders with a range of operational capabilities to match the threat. Despite financial constraints, there is a successful programme that allows the Treasury to fund urgent operational requirements to procure equipment within a shortened timescale. Since 2001, more than £5.5 billion has been spent on UORs for Afghanistan.
Armed Forces Bill
Lord Empey Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I first speak to Amendment 1, which is in my name as well as that of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig. I repeat his thanks to the Minister and his officials and to the officials in this House who came in for some criticism the other day for possibly being slow over this matter.
In Committee and at Second Reading a number of us made comments about how the veterans part of this covenant would be overseen. I am enormously grateful for the way that the Government have moved and for the amendments now before us. However, thinking through how this might happen, I still think that in the years to come the Government may well find that they will have to have somebody outside the Ministry of Defence responsible for overseeing the delivery of the veterans part of the covenant. A number of us have suggested in the past that that would be better done by having a Minister for veteran affairs in the Cabinet Office. I suggest that whoever is given that appointment will also need someone like a commissioner responsible for the 24/7 oversight of the work being done for veterans in response to whatever is presented by the various Ministers in each of the annual reports.
Lord Empey
My Lords, I, too, speak to Amendments 5, 6 and 7. I, too, am grateful to the Minister for his attention to these matters. I recall when I first went to see him in July that his officials were somewhat sceptical about the need for some of these changes. But if these amendments are accepted, the Bill will leave the Chamber a better and stronger piece of legislation than when it came in. The military covenant is gradually being defined to the extent that it will mean things to people. I was anxious to avoid some potential political slip-ups in the future, particularly with regard to devolved regions, and to try to ensure a degree of compatibility and comparison in terms of the treatment available to people in different parts of the country so that over time we did not see disparities developing.
I thank the Minister for communicating with us and making himself and his officials available, which I think has contributed to the comments that have just been made. I believe that we can now move forward in a much stronger position with the concerns raised on all sides of the House addressed. I certainly will be supporting these amendments.
Lord Boyce
My Lords, I would just like to associate myself with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and others about the co-operation and adaptability shown by the Minister.
Armed Forces Bill
Lord Empey Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Empey
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 7 in my own name and comment on Amendment 6 in this group. There is an obvious similarity between the two amendments. I worded mine slightly differently because the particular Secretary of State who may be required to provide information from time to time will vary. That is why in Amendment 7 I used the term “relevant”. Similarly, it may be that in some reports specific requirements are made of one devolved Administration and not another.
There is a second reason why Amendment 7 differs from Amendment 6. I detected in conversations with the Government a sensitivity over any interference with the devolution settlement. I phrased my amendment so that it goes to the Administration rather than to the individual Minister in the Administration. I personally have no difficulty with the requirement going to the individual Minister in the devolved Administrations but, with personal experience in dealing with this for many years, I can assure the House that there will certainly be difficulties, particularly if that applies in Northern Ireland.
I made the point at Second Reading and in Committee that we have cast-iron experience that there is a loose end in the Bill. At Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, expressed the views of many Members in this House that there was broad support for the covenant and that we were glad to see it coming before the House in the amendments. But the noble Baroness made the point that there were loose ends and that those would have to be tidied up as the process continued. We now have an opportunity to do just that.
The wording of either of these amendments may not be perfect. Indeed, there may be technicalities here or there that need to be improved, but there is time for that to be done. I join with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, in the comments he made when introducing his amendment. Mine merely gives the Minister a different way of doing that, another option to achieve exactly the same thing. We want buy-in.
An important point has been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Newton. If there is a statutory requirement on a department to do something, somebody in that department is plugged in to do it. All legislation and legislative requirements in a department are written down every year and a path is created in the department for that particular legislative requirement to be fulfilled. Otherwise, it is left to the whim of the relevant Minister, or to a correspondence between two private offices, or to whatever particular interest any given Minister may take in the subject. Making a requirement on a department ensures that the legislative section takes it on board and it is put into the programme of that department for a year ahead, so we know that the thing will be done right.
I can well understand Government resisting amendments. I have done it myself and we all know it. My anxiety is over the fact that this is a unique piece of legislation. The speeches delivered by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, would have got the message across that we are dealing with something unique, and I welcome that. If one sees the privations and dangers that our service personnel are going through, and if we read, hear and see in our own areas the consequences of the actions that they are being required to take—far-reaching consequences that will grow in significance over time, because people are coming back from these wars with terrible injuries from which in other times they would have perished on the battlefield and facing 40, 50 or 60 years of life with them—they are going to put a Major requirement on the delivery of service in the years ahead.
It is not unreasonable in those circumstances to say to given departments, which I expect will vary from year to year, and to the devolved Administrations, that they have to be plugged into this process. I know there are sensitivities over interference with devolution settlements and I suppose that there may be some people who do not want to annoy Mr Salmond, or whoever, but the fact of the matter is that service personnel and former service personnel are a national responsibility. They are the responsibility of Parliament; they are employed as soldiers, service men, airmen and naval personnel on behalf of the United Kingdom, not on behalf of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England. It is therefore up to Parliament, irrespective of devolution settlements, to ensure that there is not a postcode lottery as far as the provision of services is concerned throughout this country.
As I said, I know this from personal experience because last year, in the Northern Ireland Assembly, a Bill was introduced entitled the Armed Forces and Veterans Bill. It was a Private Member’s Bill and it went through all its stages. I provided the Minister with copies of the debate from the Committee and all the rest of it. Yet when push came to shove in February of this year, that Bill was vetoed and not allowed to proceed. That was done under the special provisions that we have, because some people objected to special provision being made for service personnel or former service personnel. I wrote to the Minister—he has kindly replied to me—that in Northern Ireland we have Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act, which is designed to prevent discrimination. I was concerned that people would hide behind the idea that if they were giving something special to service personnel, it would be discriminating in favour of a particular group, but I am happy to say that the Minister assured me that that was not the case.
Nevertheless, I believe that there has to be some means of ensuring that Parliament is aware of what the input is and that if there is a special requirement which the Secretary of State should deem appropriate, it can be delivered. I believe that on two points: first, that of ensuring that departments actually deliver on this and, secondly, that there is no political interference at a devolved level with the delivery of service. This is a national provision. It will remain the responsibility of Parliament, which is the way it should be because defence is an excepted matter. Yet while that provision is never going to be the responsibility of the devolved Administrations, the delivery of the necessary services is—so Parliament has to prioritise and be clear. I have no problem whatever with whether that is done by means of Amendment 6, my own amendment or another amendment which we could deal with between now and next week. To ensure that it is done is the key and I therefore look forward very much to the Minister’s response to this group of amendments.
Lord Empey
“( ) Where an armed forces covenant report states that special provision for service people or particular descriptions of service people is justified, it must also state how the Secretary of State will seek to ensure that the special provision made is broadly the same in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.”
Lord Empey
My Lords, this is almost a consequential amendment. I said in my previous remarks that the one thing that I want to prevent is a postcode lottery in the delivery of services to members of the Armed Forces and veterans. Given that we have a national commitment and defence is a national issue, but the delivery of many of these services is within the remit of neither the Secretary of State for Defence nor other Whitehall departments, there is a long-term danger of divergence. We all know that there are already differences between regions of the country in the delivery of healthcare, for instance. That is not specific to the Armed Forces; it is true in general. There are also variations in standards in education, and variations from one local authority to another in the standard of housing provided. Therefore, because of the diversity of our nation, one is not going to get absolutely the same level of service in every corner. However, we have an obligation to ensure that, in so far as it is possible, we have broadly the same level of service provision where that is required for members of the Armed Forces or veterans.
Lest the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, thinks that I would like to see people who had an accident 50 years ago coming forward for compensation, I stress that that is not what I am getting at. I do not think that is what anybody here is getting at. What we are getting at is to ensure that those people who put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf are provided for. The noble Viscount, Lord Slim, who is not in his place, pointed out that in only one of the past 40 or 50 years have no personnel died in action. Given all the complexities and the growing number of multiple amputees and seriously injured young people who are coming back from conflicts, we know that there will be a long-term burden.
The Secretary of State has the power to indicate in the covenant if he feels that special provision has to be made. However, the Secretary of State for Defence is not the person in charge of the delivery of that special provision. He may have considerable influence in Whitehall due to the fact that you generally have a one-party Government or at least a coalition, as we now have, but in the devolved Administrations you could have anything but. You could have parties that are poles apart. It is highly likely that the special provision will cost money. Where will the money come from? The devolved regions are given block grants and it is up to their relevant Ministers to disburse them. The Secretary of State could say, “I believe provision X should be provided to the service personnel and veterans”, but he cannot deliver it because a devolved Minister can tell him to take a running jump. I assure the Secretary of State that I know for certain that some of them would do that—and he knows that only too well—so how is he to deliver on the covenant without running the risk of instituting a postcode lottery? The only way that I can think of—other noble Lords have said the same thing—is by having a statutory requirement because, if the requirement is placed on a devolved Administration as opposed to an individual Minister, the Administration take on the responsibility, just as a Whitehall department takes on a responsibility.
If the Secretary of State for Defence decides that provision needs to be made which would have implications for health spending, what will his colleague in the health department say? Will he say, “Do you realise that this will cost me another £70 million a year? Where is the money to come from? Are you giving it to me?”? How will the Secretary of State provide the wherewithal to deliver the special provision which, sadly and regrettably, I have no doubt will be required? The amendment seeks merely to nail down the covenant so that it has a practical implication and outcome for those who need it most. I return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, about departments and how the system works. A department has a mechanism whereby all its statutory requirements are listed and the obligations are brought through year on year and there is a process for doing that. If it is merely a case of having a chat with the relevant Minister, I assure noble Lords that that will not deliver. As the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said, we need to tidy up the loose ends.
This matter follows on from Amendments 6 and 7 and the consensus that we have had throughout the passage of the Bill. I join the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in thanking the Minister for making himself available for briefings. I regret that I could not attend the one this morning because I could not get here in time but I thank him for what he is doing. I sincerely hope that the period of reflection that he and his colleagues will undertake will be highly productive. I beg to move.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, noble Lords who have spoken in support of Amendment 9 have voiced their disquiet at the prospect of variation between the different countries of the United Kingdom in the way that special provision or special treatment is applied. I have previously said to your Lordships that the Government are sympathetic to the principle of consistency. As noble Lords have pointed out, members of the Armed Forces serve the Crown and the whole of the United Kingdom, not a local council or the devolved Administrations. The Armed Forces covenant is with the nation, not with one part of it. All parts of government across the UK share the moral obligation to honour it.
Nevertheless, we must keep this in perspective. The terminology of a postcode lottery is emotive and sometimes used unfairly to describe the legitimate scope for local decisions about local services. There are many examples where that scope for local decision has led to better outcomes for members of the Armed Forces community, rather than allowing councils or Administrations to escape their obligations. The Government have no wish to stifle that local initiative or control everything from Whitehall by regulation.
One alternative to regulation is successful dialogue. Again, I have referred in the past to what dialogue has achieved across a range of different domains, such as the introduction of the new arrangements for scholarships for bereaved service children. Another example I gave was the new transition protocol for transferring the care of injured personnel from military to civilian services across all the countries of the United Kingdom. So I am not as pessimistic about the future as the noble Lord, Lord Empey. The noble Lord knows that the particular terms of the amendment, which would require the Government to include in the report a statement on how we would ensure that the provision is broadly the same across the UK, causes difficulty. That goes some way beyond what we envisage as the content of the annual report. Even if we accepted the underlying assumption that the UK Government should act in the way suggested, we would not necessarily have the answers available when the report was published.
In Grand Committee, the noble Lord invited the Government to reflect further on those matters, and we have. He used a very good phrase when he referred to his desire to connect every part of the UK to the report process. In that debate, I gave the noble Lord the assurance that, where the Secretary of State reaches the conclusion that special provision is justified, the annual report will attempt to take into account the position across the United Kingdom. We would take a wide view. I trust that that assurance, together with the further statements which I had made today about the report process, will give the noble Lord the assurance he seeks. I therefore ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Empey
I thank the Minister for his response. I understand that “postcode lottery” can be an emotive phrase, but he knows that neither I nor anyone else who has used it has done so with any sense of flippancy. It was used to convey the point that servicepeople serve all of us and that services that they need in unfortunate circumstances should be broadly equivalent or equal throughout the United Kingdom. I think that that is the general view.
I support the concept of dialogue. That is excellent and, so far, it is going fine. However, I can tell the Minister, because I know—I do not have to imagine it, we have it in black and white in Hansard in Stormont—that there can and could well be a difficulty. The reason why it is going so well at the moment is purely because of the individual personnel who happen to be in post at this time, but that will change from Administration to Administration.
I am trying to ensure, as other noble Lords are, that we avoid difficulty in the future. However, we accept, and I think everybody accepts, that one wants to do this with the minimum of regulation. However, the Minister needs to take it on board that if the Secretary of State for Defence decides that special provision has to be made, which is perfectly natural, the quid pro quo is that the Secretary of State has to be in a position to tell Parliament how it is going to be delivered. The Secretary of State for Defence is not the Minister who can deliver. That is a fact. It might be an inconvenient fact but it is nevertheless a fact.
All I am interested in is avoiding a problem in the future. I have no desire to create difficulties for the Minister or for the Government but I wish to ensure that difficulties are not created down the line and that an unseemly row starts over something that we would want to keep above that sort of level. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Armed Forces Bill
Lord Empey Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 13, but if I had seen them before, I would have spoken also to Amendments 14 and 15 because they say very much the same thing. They are an amplification of some of the points that have already been discussed in relation to this clause. I tabled this amendment because I had supposed that after the Grand Committee, the Minister would want to reflect before the Report stage on many of the things that had been put forward. Indeed, those of us who have tabled amendments have done so in order to make certain that what comes before the House on Report is a consideration of all that has been said related to the aim of the covenant and what it is trying to do.
My reason for tabling Amendment 13 is that I am uneasy about two subsections in their implications for veterans. I refer particularly to subsections (2)(b) and (c) which talk about the report looking at,
“the fields of healthcare, education and housing; and … in other such fields as the Secretary of State may determine”.
Presumably that is a reference to the Secretary of State for Defence. My other concern is about subsection (6)(a) which states that,
“the Secretary of State must consider whether the making of special provision … would be justified”.
I do not think that it is up to the Secretary of State for Defence to decide what it is appropriate for Parliament to be told about veteran affairs. As has already been said, veteran affairs are the responsibility of many other ministries which presumably will decide how they implement the responsibilities that are laid on them by the Government and the nation. It is not up to the Secretary of State for Defence to implement that. He is responsible for the application of the covenant to those people who are serving.
That is where I disagree slightly with the Minister because I think that there are two parts to this covenant. One is to do with the serving, which can be dealt with by the Ministry of Defence, and the other is to do with the veterans, which is dealt with by others. That is why I suggested that the Minister for veteran affairs should be somewhere else where he can co-ordinate that activity. Therefore, based on the suggestion that the covenant should be in two parts, it is important that, while I agree that you cannot list everything that should be there, there should be a very clear indication given by the Government to the ministries that have a responsibility for veteran affairs as to what those responsibilities cover. The Cabinet Office is well able to do this. For example, there is mention in the covenant book published by the Ministry of Defence that there is going to be a mental health well-being website, which it is the responsibility of the Department of Health to establish. Presumably, that department will report on that.
On prosthetics provision, I await with interest the report by Dr Murrison because, as I have mentioned in the House before, I had once to accept a cheque on behalf of a voluntary organisation, accompanied by a young Royal Marine who had lost two legs and one arm in Afghanistan. He had just returned from America where he had had his prosthetic legs serviced because the NHS was unable to provide technicians to service them. That is utterly unacceptable. The NHS must make provision for having artificial limbs serviced wherever the person happens to be. That is for the NHS to do and to report on, and not for the Secretary of State for Defence.
Changes to service pensions are for the Department for Work and Pensions. As regards social housing, I think that it is interesting that a number of counties have already come forward with their own version of the covenant as it applies in their county. I mention Hampshire in particular because I happen to have seen that version, which is very interesting. I suggest that this is a matter for the Department for Communities and Local Government to take an interest in to make certain that what is provided is consistent throughout the United Kingdom, and that it is not a postcode lottery as to where you happen to live as a veteran because one county is doing something and another is doing something else.
I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Young, mentioned those who get into the hands of the criminal justice system. I should also like to see an obligation for a report, for example, from the Ministry of Justice about how the problems faced by people ex-service getting into the hands of the criminal justice system are being catered for and how they are being helped to rehabilitate into civilian life after custody. The Ministry of Justice has not being doing that very well. Recently, the Howard League produced a report which covers some aspects but not as many of the practicalities as I would like. We want to see the practicalities in the covenant and the Ministry of Justice held to account for making certain that those things happen.
I put my name to Amendment 2 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield because its value is that it lists a whole lot of subjects that need to be covered. It is not specific in detail but it covers the aspects. It is very important to have somebody independent responsible to the Veterans Minister for co-ordinating the activities of the public, private and voluntary sectors in support of veterans. I am very glad to see that acknowledgement has been given to the role of the Confederation of British Service and Ex-Service Organisations, COBSEO, which is now seen as a representative of service charities, pulling them all together. The more one looks at this, it is a very fragmented area. The covenant provides a priceless opportunity to pull everything together in a more comprehensive and national way. Therefore, it is very important that those who have responsibilities in this area should be told the general areas for which they are responsible, and that should not be up to the Secretary of State for Defence to determine but for the Government, on behalf of the nation.
Lord Empey
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 14 and 15 in my name and that of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. First, we welcome the fact that we have a military covenant in this Bill. I would also like to thank the Minister for being so accessible to colleagues by way of explanation of what is happening and the availability of his officials for consultation.
As I see it, the big issue, basically, is this. I would like a situation where all servicepeople, irrespective of postcode, can expect that they and their families will, as far as is practicable, be able to command and receive the services that we believe are necessary in the event of them getting into difficulties on the battlefield or, in the event of a fatality, back-up for their families, which is broadly the same throughout the United Kingdom. In other words, a serviceperson from a particular part of the United Kingdom should not go on to the battlefield with the thought hanging over his or her head that if anything went wrong they or their families would receive less help and service in some parts of the United Kingdom.
I think that it was the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, who is not in her place, who said at Second Reading that we had some loose ends to tidy up, and I believe we have loose ends here. As has been stated by other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, the issue is simply that the Secretary of State is not in charge of the delivery mechanisms that are required to ensure that the covenant means something to the people for whom it is designed. Not only does he not control other Whitehall departments, but it is perfectly obvious that in the age of devolution he does not control what the devolved Administrations do. As we know, they receive block grants and, as it so happens, are in charge of the three issues that have been highlighted in the Bill—health, education and housing. Therefore, we are trying to ensure that when the Secretary of State makes his or her report to Parliament, Parliament knows who is feeding input into that report so that it can judge whether or not it is comprehensive. I do not wish to unpick or interfere with devolution settlements. That is not what this amendment is about. This amendment is allowing Parliament to be informed as to who precisely is contributing to the report.
Turning to the Explanatory Notes, the end of paragraph 19 says:
“Under new section 359A(6) the Secretary of State must also consider whether effects covered by the report would justify making special provision for servicepeople, or a category of them. If the Secretary of State does consider that to be the case, the report must say so.”
If the Secretary of State subsequently decided that something under that heading would have to be done, they could not deliver—at least not in all parts of the United Kingdom. That is perfectly obvious, because the Secretary of State is no longer in control. Therefore, we have the pieces on the board that are necessary to deliver a covenant, but we have not put them together in the most effective way.
Lord Empey
“( ) Where an armed forces covenant report states that special provision for service people or particular descriptions of service people is justified, it must also state how the Secretary of State will seek to ensure that the special provision made is broadly the same in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.”
Lord Empey
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that the Minister and his colleagues will wish to reflect on the debate, and we will wish to reflect on what he has said. As the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said, the phraseology that we have used in these amendments may not be ideal. Nevertheless, I think there is a consensus in the Committee that there needs to be some way—I do not wish this to clash with the devolution settlement in any way—of allowing Parliament to ensure that the various component parts of the UK are co-operating in this regard. If that is not done, they may diverge over time. That is something none of us would wish to see. As I say, we will wish to reflect on the Minister’s response.
Armed Forces Bill
Lord Empey Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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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.
Armed Forces: Resources
Lord Empey Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Empey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that the Armed Forces have sufficient resources to meet their obligations in the light of recent and additional deployments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)
My Lords, first, I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in offering sincere condolences to the families and friends of Craftsman Andrew Found of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, serving with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys), and Corporal Lloyd Newell of the Parachute Regiment, who were both killed on operations in Afghanistan on Thursday 16 June. My thoughts are also with the wounded, and I pay tribute to the courage and fortitude with which they face their rehabilitation.
The Government are fully committed to providing our Armed Forces with the resources needed to carry out operations, as has been demonstrated in Afghanistan and more recently in Libya. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made clear, the additional costs of operations in Libya will be fully met from the Government’s special reserve.
Lord Empey
I thank the Minister for his reply and, once again, the sobering reality of what our forces are facing. However, while fully understanding the difficult financial legacy which this Government have inherited, I believe there is a growing unease in this House, in the forces and in the country that the armed services are being asked to undertake more difficult and dangerous missions at the same time as their resources are being cut. How do the Government propose to reconcile these conflicting realities?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, dealing with the economic legacy that we inherited has required us to reduce the size of the Armed Forces and cut or gap a number of low-priority capabilities. However, the SDSR states explicitly the need for an adaptable posture to defend our interests in the world. As a result, we have structured and resourced our forces to give us flexibility to conduct operations.