Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton and Lord Boyce

Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I oppose this amendment. Fundamentally, I believe that it would be seriously detrimental to the chain of command. I have some questions. Will membership be voluntary? Would there be a subscription? Would all Armed Forces members be expected to join?

I want to focus particularly on the purpose mentioned in the amendment: that the federation might represent members on welfare, remuneration and efficiency. On welfare, we have the covenant. We have myriad Armed Forces charities, and we have the internal welfare services and a number of other things. I cannot see what value this would add. On remuneration, the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body has respect among the members of the Armed Forces. How would this dovetail with the federation? On efficiency, what do we mean by efficiency? Is it fighting efficiency—in which case, what will the competence of the federation be to decide what is good or bad efficiency on the fighting side of life?

The amendment also says that:

“The Armed Forces Federation may represent a member of the armed forces at any proceedings”.


Would we have to have an Armed Forces federation member, rather like a Soviet commissar, on ships deployed for example in the Pacific? I think this is completely impractical.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, oppose this amendment. I take the opportunity at the start of the session to remind your Lordships of my interest as a serving member of the Army Reserve.

I was going to intervene on the noble Lord, but perhaps I will give him this opportunity to intervene on me in reply to this question: how many members of the Armed Forces have contacted him or the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to ask for this? Surely somebody has. I say that, because at no point in my 33 years’ service in the regular and reserve has this ever really been a topic of discussion for serving members of the Armed Forces. If the noble Lord wants to intervene on me or perhaps answer the question when he comes back at the end, I would be fascinated to know how many members of the Armed Forces have actually asked for this. I have a horrible feeling that the answer is none. I certainly have no experience of that.

Equally, I share the noble and gallant Lord’s concerns about the impact on the chain of command. Given the unique circumstances that we find ourselves in in the military, certainly on operations, there is a distinct way of doing things with the chain of command. There are ways through the chain of command to make your complaints. Of course, we now also have the Service Complaints Commissioner. We have quite a developed sense of how this works in the military, which is why I go back to my first point: I just do not sense that there is any demand for this at all within the community the noble Lord is seeking to impose it on.

Where there are areas of concern, for example pay, we have quite a developed system with the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body. I have given evidence to this body as a Minister. It is a very considered body, it is independent and its recommendations have been taken very seriously by successive Governments now for many years. We have seen that in the annual pay award, which the Government are forced to respond to

I suppose my principal opposition to all this is that I just do not understand where the demand is coming from, other than political parties potentially wishing to impose their values on our Armed Forces.