Armed Forces Bill

Lord Morse Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morse (CB)]

I am delighted to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. I am an Army brat. I am not sure how many of them are in the room, but my father was a serving officer and I was brought up in some 25 different insalubrious married quarters around the world, so I have some feeling for what we speak of. In addition to that, as Comptroller and Auditor-General, I had the pleasure of making quite a lot of reports on both the MoD as a whole and on the Annington Homes “deal”, which is probably the most neutral expression I can use.

I am clear that we owe a massive debt to the Armed Forces, and it is not easy to pay it off, because it requires seeing them integrate into society in a comfortable way, which is often very difficult for them, quite painful, and not always successful to be honest. We need to recognise responsibility for a lot of people who have been deeply embedded in major institutions for long periods, and are coming out of that and trying to live what we would call a normal life. They need help when they are doing that, and if we are not responsible, then I do not know who is.

I respect and support the objectives of this Bill, and I believe the best way I can help is by trying to point out a few areas where we need to be on guard against building disappointment into the legislation. The Bill places a legal obligation on various public bodies that are likely to be providing services to service people before or after retirement to give due consideration to the armed services covenant in making decisions on access to their services. This is positive, but it is important to remember that local authorities have a wide range of services they are legally obligated to provide to their residents, as do health providers. There is a significant difference between a legal obligation to give due consideration, which could be satisfied by having a minuted discussion, and an obligation to provide a service where residents can and frequently do seek judicial review to enforce provision of services. I suspect that many local authorities feel they are under heavy financial pressure already, and struggle to meet their existing statutory obligations, so the obligation to consider the covenant may sometimes produce disappointing results for people who believed that they were walking forward with the Armed Forces covenant in their hand, expecting a fulsome response. It may be very difficult for local authorities to do that.

Local authorities may be able to seek relief under the new burdens rules, but most applications of this relief are intended to provide transitional cover only, so the burden will generally last a lot longer than the relief. Notwithstanding that some service providers support champions to assist forces people to find their way to what may be available, it may be worth while to consider an independent professional advocacy service modelled on the ombudsman, with ombudsman-style authority and the ability to command witnesses. That would provide much more effective and wider enforcement of their rights, or at least make sure that, when we say “due consideration”, it really means something. Having an authoritative voice at the table might help a great deal.

On service accommodation, the record of underachievement is a long one. The Annington Homes example is currently in the press, although it all took place a long time ago. Put briefly, this was a sale and lease back of a large estate of MoD-owned properties in need of extensive repair. The deal provided the MoD with a significant capital payment and a future rental obligation, but the responsibility to keep the estate in repair has been the subject of a long-running dispute. Meanwhile, the estate has become progressively more dilapidated and, in some cases, uninhabitable. The lump sum that the MoD received certainly did not go into keeping the estate in repair. The moral of the story is that assets with no income stream to support maintenance lose value and fail in their primary purpose of providing good-quality accommodation for forces people.

Could this sort of thing happen again under the Bill’s provisions on property? It is obviously not meant to. Let us answer that by looking at the three pillars of The Defence Housing Strategy 2025. The first looks to a renewal of defence family housing stock over a 10-year period and commits £9 billion to support this. The second calls for an independent body for defence housing and the third looks to ensure that defence housing and defence land deliver for the nation. I will come back to that one.

The first two pillars look mutually reinforcing, although it would be helpful to set a standard that housing stock could be brought to and maintained at, rather than just hoping it will be in good condition. As we saw with Annington Homes, maintenance is crucial in sustaining the value and usability of a property. Since lack of maintenance is not necessarily obvious, it is perilously easy to rob Peter to pay Paul elsewhere in the MoD budget. I have seen this happen quite a few times. One suggestion to push back on this would be to set a required enforceable objective, perhaps treating the decent homes code, which is familiar to the MoD, as the basement and then building up from that to the quality of accommodation we want this scheme to deliver. We could and should think about that.

On the third pillar, the objective of delivering for the nation may involve delivering to the nation instead. The objective has a Treasury-ish tone to it. The pressure to generate substantial funding and to assist in the pursuit of national housebuilding targets and other wider policy objectives could become a very powerful driver. However, this need not be irreconcilable with providing excellent accommodation for our armed services, provided this is suitably protected and the defence property budget is specifically ring-fenced and protected so that it is accumulated over the 10-year period specified for renewal and not accessible for other purposes.

The enshrinement of the Armed Forces covenant in law is a significant step forward. The ambitions inherent in it deserve our support and as much reinforcement and stiffening on the delivery front as we can bring to bear. We need our military, now more than for many years, and we owe it our strong engagement in this Bill.

Armed Services: Sexual Violence

Lord Morse Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of training all ranks. Certainly, I know that the military take that extremely seriously. The establishment of the victim care unit is part of ensuring that victims are supported through the process. On whether the training has been identified according to rank, I will go back and see whether that has been done.

[Lord Morse (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that part of supporting victims is showing clear and sustained condemnation for this type of behaviour, and ensuring that the military pursues these cases vigorously and rapidly and that we do not find delay in the process?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I know that there have been a number of documented cases of utterly unacceptable behaviour, some of which is criminal and deserves to be prosecuted. I know from speaking to senior officers, past and present, that they are determined to do something about the small number of people who undermine the culture of our Armed Forces. They are adamant in the pursuit of those who break those rules and act inappropriately. The Government support them in that, as did the previous Government. We support our senior officers and officers at all ranks in rooting out this totally unacceptable behaviour.