Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Lee of Trafford and Lord Stirrup

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 9. This is a cross-party amendment and I respectfully point out that three of the four signatories are in fact former Defence Ministers, and the fourth—the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup—is of course the former Chief of the Defence Staff.

My understanding is that, in preparation of the covenant report, the Secretary of State will consult and liaise with the Secretaries of State covering the areas of health, education and housing. However, we believe that to actually change the Bill so that there must be specific statements from the Secretary of State for Health, the Secretary of State for Education and—covering housing—the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government would considerably enhance the Bill. It would also give those respective departments much greater ownership of the covenant and would certainly add to it. This relatively simple amendment would considerably strengthen the covenant. Of course, it also touches on Amendments 5, 11 and 13. Therefore, I commend it to the Committee.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 9, to which my name is appended. As I said at Second Reading, it seems to me that many of the most intractable issues with regard to the Armed Forces covenant are not within the remit of the Ministry of Defence to attend to: health, education, social services and so on. If the only provision in the Bill for bringing people to account is for them to answer to Parliament for their performance that year, Parliament must be able to probe the Secretaries of State of the relevant ministries, otherwise there is no effective enforcement mechanism and the whole purpose of this part of the Bill will fail. Having the relevant Secretaries of State append their signatures to the relevant parts of the annual report is the very minimum that we should be doing. Indeed, I would go further and seek to ensure that the relevant Secretaries of State are answerable to, and do answer to, Parliament on the anniversary of the Bill and on the annual performance report. This seems at the very least a starting point and will give Parliament the opportunity to probe Ministers on the statements they have made and to which they have appended their signatures in the annual report.