Royal Navy: Escort Vessels

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the Naval Service, which includes the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary which supports them, is able to fulfil commitments around the globe and maintain a maritime presence in priority regions, such as the South Atlantic, the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. The Naval Service also safeguards the security of home waters, meets our defence commitments in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, patrols the Antarctic waters and undertakes periodic deployments to other areas, such as the Far East and the Pacific.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the next generation of escort ships. Where are we with the development of Type 26 global combat ships? Are they still on target to come into service in the early 2020s; what does “the early 2020s” mean; and do we still intend to have 12 to 13 of these vessels?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the Type 26 will be the workhorse of the future Royal Navy. It is in its assessment phase. I understand that the main investment decision will be made in the middle of the decade. The aspiration is that Type 26 will be in service by 2020, and the number we are hoping to have is 13.

Defence: Better Defence Acquisition

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, we on these Benches associate ourselves with the condolences and tributes from the Minister. I will be more direct and ask just one question, and it may be easier to give just one answer. I am worried about the GOCO proposals, as are many people, but I believe that the situation appertaining to procurement in the MoD cannot continue as it is and that something must change. GOCO seems to be the preferred solution and gives us many worries that were expounded during the debate on the Queen’s Speech. If GOCO proceeds, the question I want to focus on is the identity of the contractor—the CO part of GOCO. From Written Answers received from my noble friend the Minister, there is no reason why this contractor may not be a foreign company. We are apparently reassured that the foreign company’s UK arm will have a Chinese wall between it and its US or European parent company. With the experience in this country of industries such as water being sold to foreign companies and how they then control those companies, is the Minister not being over-optimistic in thinking that, if there were secrets in the UK arm of these overseas companies, those secrets would not somehow go—this sounds like the last question—to those overseas companies?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, my noble friend and I have had a number of discussions about GOCO and I am well aware of his concerns. I look forward to continuing discussions in the future and to hearing any positive suggestions that he has. I agree that something has to change. We cannot carry on with the existing situation.

The noble Lord asked me about national security protection, a point also made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, which I should have answered. Our national security interests are a primary responsibility of the Government. The better delivery of our acquisition support needs will be of real benefit. We will ensure that DE&S will be suitably constructed to ensure the protection of UK national interests. In order to safeguard UK national security, the contracting entity and the operating company must be UK registered and the overwhelming majority of the contract shall be performed in the United Kingdom. In addition, there will be restrictions on passing information to parent companies. Potential contracting entities will need to satisfy the Ministry of Defence that they can meet the national security restrictions, which will include a number of areas where only UK nationals can have access to the information.

I hope that reassures my noble friend. I have several other pages of information on this issue. I do not want to labour the House with it but I am quite happy to discuss it with my noble friend in private.

Armed Forces: Pay

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, there is no link between the Prime Minister’s decision not to reappoint Professor Smith and the increase in X-factor. The Prime Minister’s decision not to extend Professor Smith’s appointment represents broader government policy regarding no automatic right to reappointment to non-departmental public bodies such as the pay review body. The decision is in line with the Commissioner for Public Appointments’ Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies. An interim chair, John Steele, has been drawn from the remaining members of the AFPRB until a formal replacement can be appointed.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, from these Benches I also welcome the inclusion of the uprating in the X-factor payment. However, what remit did the Government set for the Armed Forces Pay Review Body before it started work on its most recent report?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the remit for the 2013-14 pay round and the Armed Forces Pay Review Body’s terms of reference are contained within its 2013-14 report, copies of which are available in the Library of the House. The report also includes a letter to the body from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in which he provides details of the Government’s approach to public sector pay for the 2013-14 pay round.

Defence: Procurement

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for instigating the debate. We are obviously not the popular debate in this and the other House today. I thank in advance my noble friend the Minister who, as the noble Baroness has said, gives us such good briefings. I am also grateful for the briefings that we get when we have such eminent speakers, which have always been incredibly useful.

The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, has covered a wide area in her 10 minutes. I will try to add a few things, having made notes as I have listened. The sad fact is that defence procurement has for far too long been a drag on our forces’ expenditure and national expenditure. Purchases have proved sluggish and inflexible, delivering equipment and resources late and over budget. That is not only the case now; it has been in the past as well. That is why the coalition Government have been right to challenge the way in which defence procurement has operated. As the noble Baroness has just said, the Government have a full battery of reviews to consider. She mentioned a couple: the Levene review, Bernard Gray’s materiel strategy work and the procurement review of the noble Lord, Lord Currie.

The Government have also had the benefit of what is described as the,

“large number of responses with a wide variety of views”,

to their own Green Paper, Equipment, Support, and Technology. As has been mentioned, there comes a point when decisions must be made, improvements found and efficiencies delivered. One example is the question of the future of defence equipment and security examined in detail by Bernard Gray, as the noble Baroness has just said. His proposals for government-owned contractor- operated procurement created wide ripples, and the Government need to be clear, as the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said, how they intend to take that forward. That is obviously very important.

How will the Government respond to the broader concerns about the skills required to reform our process of defence procurement: finance, engineering and project management? Above all, the skills of estimating cost, both on expenditure and available resources, must be strengthened. We are pretty weak in estimating the cost of the final bill. Overall, procurement for our forces must meet our responsibilities both to our service personnel under the Armed Forces covenant and to the British taxpayer in securing value for money. The coalition Government have much overdue work to do on both fronts.

How much value, or cost, do we have in store on the shelves, and how often are these stores called upon? Does the MoD just order from suppliers rather than look around the shelves on some stock control system to see what we have? Very often it is easier to ring up your supplier rather than take it off the shelf. What of value do we have on our shelves and would we be wise to seek a buyer, or buyers, for this equipment if it is not moved or even required for a long time?

I thought hard about an example, which came to me because I was talking to some United States Air Force colonels who came to this House a few days ago. I talked to them for 30 minutes. They use Harriers. Do we have spare parts for Harriers? The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, mentioned them when she spoke. If we have spare parts for Harriers, perhaps we should sell them off to the United States Air Force. When we spoke about parts, it said, “We need Harrier parts”. I did not initiate that; it is what it said.

Before the Government go on even a moderate ordering or buying spree, all in the correct defence of the realm, what work is done on estimating what conflicts are likely? Procurement cannot be taken in isolation; it is about estimating what is going to happen. I could give many examples but I do not think you can divorce the discussion on procurement from what is going to happen with Trident, which is a very expensive weapon. I know that a review is being undertaken, supervised by Danny Alexander MP, but the actual cost of Trident is going to weigh down on a lot of our procurement strategy, whether we have it or not and whether we have like-for-like renewal.

Do we want armoured vehicles for hot or cold climates? Should they be for coping with roadside explosive devices? The old vehicles used to get blown up because they could not cope with that. Can we think what conflicts are going to happen and where those vehicles will be needed?

The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, talked about the Armed Forces covenant. Uniforms and other personal equipment are also part of our procurement strategy. Do we need uniforms for the Arctic—there was a piece on television recently showing our forces training in Arctic circumstances—or will they be needed in the desert? We may have the horrible feeling that they are training in the Arctic, as I saw on television, but the next conflict may be on sandy terrain. Perhaps we need to know what equipment and uniforms they will need when a large proportion of them will be based on Salisbury Plain. Salisbury Plain, the Arctic, the desert—we have to make a good guess at where the conflict will be.

The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, mentioned carriers and various other warships. It is no good harking back to the past, but we have two carriers. The expenditure on them gave lots of good employment—but did we need them and do we need them? We do not have the right aircraft to fly off them at this time. Our estimation of what we need is easily exemplified by the fact that the previous Government made a decision to build carriers when we did not have the need for them, the facilities to build them or the aircraft to fly off them. The defence picture facing the United Kingdom is changing rapidly.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am sorry to interrupt but I cannot let that remark go unchallenged. The previous Government indeed committed themselves to buying two new carriers. We would have continued to have the aircraft to fly off them—the Harriers—and we ordered the F 35s to replace them. It was an entirely coherent, responsible and balanced decision.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention, but the fact is that we have two carriers that are not well used at the moment, and there is also a story that one of them will be sold off or mothballed. That is the situation now, but I take the point that the decision on aircraft was changed. That had an effect, and the Minister may wish to reply on that point.

To conclude—which is what I was about to do when I took the intervention—the defence picture facing the United Kingdom is changing rapidly, and our Armed Forces demand and deserve equipment that is up to date and responds to the risks and challenges that they face on our behalf. Nothing is more important than working out what conflicts there might be, where we estimate that they will be, what equipment will be needed for them, whether we should buy off-the-shelf equipment manufactured in this country or use the goods we have in store, and whether we should realise the money invested in the goods in store if we are not using them.

Armed Forces: Reserve Forces

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, we have always recognised that reversing the long-term decline in the Reserve Forces and increasing their strength would be challenging, which is why an additional £1.8 billion is being invested in them and why we have recently conducted a public consultation to ensure that the right relationships are established in future between the reserves and their families, their employers and the Armed Forces. As I said earlier, the number of inquiries has increased and early indications are that the strength of the reserves is stabilising.

The noble Lord mentioned SMEs. We aim to tailor our approach, adjusting our working practice to reflect the different opportunities and impacts of reserve service for different employers—public and private, large, medium and small—as well as by sector.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, can the Minister tell us how, in the rush to increase our Reserve Forces, we will ensure that the relevant skills are available from the new reserves so recruited?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, all three Armed Forces are recruiting reservists against defined military trade requirements. Some reservists seek to use their civilian skills in their military role, and we encourage them to do this, but many do not, and training will be provided in the required military trades. In future, we seek to achieve greater accreditation of training and increased mutual recognition of civilian and military qualifications between the Armed Forces and civilian employers.

Armed Forces: Army Basing Plan

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, it is my understanding that a good deal of night training takes place in different training areas, such as Salisbury Plain, Otterburn in Northumberland and in Wales. We hope to keep the NATO training area in Germany after we move the rest of the Army out. Troops go to Alberta, Canada, for night training and to other countries, of which the noble Viscount is aware, including jungle training in Brunei.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, last year in your Lordships’ House, as regards housing for the Army, I said:

“The bad news is that there will be a three-year pause in the improvements programme from April 2013”.—[Official Report, 23/4/12; col. GC 278.]

That related to the report of the Armed Forces pay review body. We owe it to our soldiers to provide good and decent accommodation. Will the Minister confirm that we are doing that and how it fits into the earlier statement about having a pause in improvements in April 2013? Can he also say whether the £1 billion funding for housing in the Statement will not lead to calls for further cuts in welfare benefits?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I quite agree with my noble friend that we owe members of our Armed Forces decent accommodation, and we are going to considerable lengths to ensure that that happens. As I said in the Statement, we are spending £1 billion to provide some 1,900 new service family accommodation units and some 7,800 single living accommodation bed spaces. The intention is that the living conditions of those returning will be comparable to those of UK troops based in Britain and that the return of units from Germany to the UK will provide greater stability for the soldiers and the families involved.

I am afraid that I have forgotten the second part of my noble friend’s question, but this money is pretty much ring-fenced for accommodation. It will not be at the expense of other areas.

Armed Forces: Redundancies

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, from these Benches, I join the commiserations expressed by my noble friend. In the short time available, perhaps I may say that the Government are rightly proud of getting the inherited defence budget in balance, but unfortunately events take place and nothing has more events than defence. Does the Minister not think that the Prime Minister’s Statement yesterday about the willingness to use force in Mali and other places shows that you cannot use a budgeting system on defence in quite the same way that you can in other departments because events take place that need action or no action? With a force depleted to 82,000 personnel, the headlines today of what we are probably going to do in Mali might not be possible in two years’ time.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point. We prepare for events, and we are confident that we can handle most things that are thrown at us. Certainly, the National Security Council is meeting as we speak and considering the situation in Mali. I am confident that we can prepare for any eventuality.

Armed Forces: Future Size

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, first, from these Benches I offer condolences to the family of the British soldier shot dead by a rogue member of the Afghan national army. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for putting this debate down—it was a pleasant surprise when I read about it in Bangkok.

The title of the debate mentions the potential problems in the Middle East. Of course, that is only one potential area of conflict and there are others. Did we expect a war in the Falklands or in the Balkans? Did we expect conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan? Can we keep out of conflict in Syria, where horrendous killings are taking place, or Israel/Palestine, whose almost intractable problems seem to be getting worse, or Egypt, Lebanon or Tunisia? The list of potential trouble spots is endless, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, indicated. Where will the next conflict or conflicts be?

With an Army of a mere 82,000 personnel, what will be feasible when any conflict takes place? Could my noble friend the Minister, who does such a great job in the Ministry of Defence, indicate how many generals will be left in this Army of 82,000? How does the number of generals in the Army now and when it is so reduced compare to the number of generals in other armies in France or the United States, relative to the number of personnel in those armed forces?

The title of the debate includes the word “configuration”. An important point from my perspective has always been the configuration of procurement in the Ministry of Defence. The questions really are: what equipment do we have, what equipment do we need and do we know what we need? The question that perhaps no one wants to ask is: what do we not know that we need? What Navy and RAF do we have and do we need? I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord West, in his place. I will leave all naval and aviation problems to him. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, mentioned two aircraft carriers being built. What planes will be able to fly from those carriers? The noble Lord made the analogy to a football team and said it was like sending a team on without a goalkeeper. I disagree: it is like sending a team on without a team. All you would have is the football stadium or the aircraft carriers and nothing to fly from them at the moment.

Then the questions are: what vehicles do we have and how do we use them in the conflicts that take place? We have armoured vehicles and we send them to an area that is sandy so we paint them a sandy colour. Then, if we have a conflict in an Arctic region we take the same vehicles and paint them white. But they are not necessarily—in fact they certainly are not—the proper equipment for our forces. The armed personnel will lose lives because of the inadequacy of that equipment. Would my noble friend accept that defence reviews and procurement move far more slowly than the fast-changing events around the world, particularly in the Middle East and north Africa? How can the Government ensure that the United Kingdom is able to react in a timely way to these defence and security challenges? Then of course there is the financial aspect and the unexpected need for finance. When conflicts take place, will finance be available from some pot somewhere to pay for it? Will the equipment needed be available at short notice?

Could the Minister say what assessment has been made of new types of warfare such as the Iron Dome defence infrastructure protecting civilians in Israel, which has meant that the rockets sent against Israel do not land in any areas of population? They are in fact developing a system that is Iron Dome-plus and Iron Dome-plus-plus to deal with medium and long-range missiles. That is something that I hope would be in our national security strategy.

The Government’s second annual report on the national security strategy and defence review last November highlighted increased instability in the Middle East as one of the major developments since the national security strategy in 2010. How will the Government update the national security strategy to reflect this change? Is the idea of just having a review and then, after a given period, another review and another review the way to go about it? Surely we should be thinking of the review as ongoing and seamless; one should be reviewing it all the time and not just at given times. Does the Minister accept that the developments in the Middle East and north Africa since the publication of the national security strategy have seen major changes in our defence and security picture that were not anticipated when the strategy was first presented. What action will the Government take as a result?

The Times today talks about extensive Army redundancies and the effect of the ability to control the future shape of the Army. The great worry is that the redundancies will include people with needed trades and that they will leave gaps in the performance of certain functions. I wonder how that will be coped with.

Perhaps the Minister will relate that to the use of the Reserve Forces. A lot is mentioned in the reviews as to the building up of the Reserve Forces, but I have my doubts as to whether people with the relevant skills will always be available, and whether they will be able to take the time off from their main employment to go and serve their country. There is a quote in the Times that perhaps doing defence on the cheap is leaving key roles empty. It really is a problem of whether the Army with 82,000 people is going to be fit for purpose.

As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, we owe a considerable and continued debt to our Armed Forces. We are lucky to have the Minister here who I know does an incredible job in the Ministry of Defence. Nothing that I am saying is meant to be critical of that. A lot of these problems are inherent in what has been happening not just during the present Administration but during previous Administrations. There is great scope for looking in a fresh light at what conflicts are likely to happen, what stocks of equipment we have, what we will need, what we could need and whether there are new items of defence and attack available in the world that we should be looking at to bring our forces completely up to date.

Armed Forces: Medical Services

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My noble friend asks a very important question. I know that he was out in Afghanistan last year and saw the very good work that our regular and reservist medics do there. They have saved a lot of lives. There are two possible answers to my noble friend’s question: first, sharing experience through teaching in training in trauma centres and, secondly, clinical placements with coalition partners in areas of conflict.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, from these Benches I express condolences at the losses referred to by the Minister. What work are the Government doing to examine the common features of the forces’ medical services so that we may stretch resources further by removing unnecessary duplication, perhaps in areas such as procurement or training?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, several initiatives are under way to remove duplication by the single services’ medical services. The first, scheduled to be delivered on 1 April next year, is the new defence primary healthcare project. The current Royal Navy, Army and Air Force primary healthcare systems will start to combine to form defence primary healthcare under the command of a two-star medical officer. The aim is to develop and create an organisation made up of Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force and civilian medical personnel working jointly to benefit all the patients they serve, to safeguard the quality of healthcare for military personnel, their dependents and entitled civilians, and to maximise the forces’ generation capabilities.

Armed Forces

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, first it must be said from these Benches that our Armed Forces have contributed magnificently both at home and abroad to the well-being of this country—often in difficult and dangerous situations, and with our soldiers, sailors and air men and women under tremendous military and political pressure. These hard facts are brought home to Members of your Lordships’ House each time my noble friend the Minister rises and offers sincere condolences to the families and friends of those who have been killed or wounded on military operations. Both the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, referred to Remembrance Day, and the Minister referred to the First World War. I had not thought for some time, until he mentioned that war, about an uncle who died as a teenager in the Middlesex Regiment. We are not talking just about Afghanistan; men and women have been serving this country for many years.

There is strong support for our Armed Forces among the British public. Armed Forces personnel have contributed to the successful resolution of large-scale emergencies by supporting the civil authorities. Their achievements include the protection of life and the rescue of those in danger—for example, during the floods in the West Country, the foot and mouth disease outbreak of 2001, the national fire strike of 2002-03, the Cumbria floods of 2005 and 2009, the floods in Yorkshire and Gloucestershire in 2007, and the big freeze in 2010; we may have another one coming towards us now. They have also worked with the police in operations on British soil where the level of force they could bring to situations was necessary to defend our national security. The military was deployed in Northern Ireland in support of the civil powers until 2007, supporting the police and managing public order. As a result, military personnel were trained in public order tactics. The Armed Forces have contributed also to protecting people in more routine situations. They have long provided a large part of the search and rescue capability around our coast.

Members of the public have written in their thousands to thank the Armed Forces for their contribution to the London 2012 Olympic Games. During the Games, they played a key role in providing additional specialist support to the police and other civil and Olympic authorities, to ensure that the Games were safe and secure. Of course, support was also provided at the Paralympic Games. The support and appreciation shown by members of the public for the way in which the Armed Forces conducted their duties has been overwhelming and gratifying for service personnel, I am sure. For many people, it would have been the first actual contact with our Armed Forces. What a great achievement and public relations triumph it was. It goes on. Only last week we were informed that in the event of a strike by prison staff, who would step in but the Army to help maintain our prisons?

I now turn to the Armed Forces’ contribution to international stability. At the end of the Cold War, international peacekeeping for military forces took on a new significance as the end of superpower rivalry allowed suppressed regional tensions around the world to reappear. In the 1990s, conflict in the Balkans challenged European and NATO countries to find ways to restore stability, and similar challenges also arose in Africa.

In the new millennium, particularly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, western nations and their allies found themselves in a range of operations, from Iraq and Afghanistan, which other noble Lords have spoken about in detail, to the counterpiracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa. The UK has adapted its use of the Armed Forces to meet these challenges, reflecting its responsibilities for global stability as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The MoD, in concert with the FCO and DfID, contributes to ensuring the tenets of the Building Stability Overseas strategy by jointly working for peace and stability in post-conflict and transitional states. Many people are doing that at this very moment.

The MoD is working to improve its upstream conflict prevention skills by honing its intelligence capabilities and contributing to Partnership for Peace initiatives. In Libya, for instance, the MoD has identified areas for targeted assistance that will deliver strategic effect, which was requested by the Libyan authorities. Will my noble friend confirm that with any cuts or reorganisations proposed we will, as far as possible as a nation, continue our support for international stability?

The Armed Forces contribute to UK resilience through their protection and promotion of the UK’s national interests overseas, the provision at home of a number of guaranteed niche capabilities—such as search and rescue and explosive ordnance disposal—and a process of augmenting civil authorities and structures where civil capability or capacity is exceeded. When the military augments civil capability, it will be in response to specific requests for planned response or to a crisis.

The important point is that military operations overseas and augmentation of civil authorities at home are not guaranteed, as they are dependent on the capabilities and availability of troops to undertake such work. Those deciding the size and shape of the UK’s Armed Forces must take their vital operational roles into account when making decisions on the Armed Forces’ future strengths and capabilities. Overall, if the military is to be reduced in size and capability, the roles that it is expected to undertake must be similarly reviewed and adjusted so that they do not exceed the capabilities available to undertake them. But in making those decisions, which my noble friend referred to in passing, we must decide what the priorities are. When there are so many calls, one must decide on the priorities.

Other noble Lords have not yet spoken about what Britain wants from its military communications. What do we want in terms of our satellite technologies? Will we replace the current fleet of communications satellites? When I investigated it, I found that so much of what the Army, Navy and Air Force do is utterly dependent on the new communications technologies that have emerged and are emerging and may well need to be replaced. We know of the Army we have but we have to decide on the Army we need. We know of the weapons and equipment that we have—the Minister detailed these and the new weapons and equipment that are coming on line—but are these what we will need for conflicts which may or may not take place?

I was going to talk about the reserves and the territorials but there was a good debate last week which covered that issue in great detail. However, there were press reports today—in at least one newspaper—of the problems of people who wish to serve in the territorials and whether their employers will give them time off and so on. It is a real problem because many commercial firms do not want the upset of people leaving after being called—at times without warning—to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan or wherever it may be.

I refer finally to the Armed Forces Act and the Armed Forces covenant contained within it. I spoke in detail at various stages during the debate on that Bill and, given what we owe our members of the Armed Forces, we have to ensure that their housing is suitable and adequate for those returning to this country. The Minister referred to that in passing. There are problems with how the properties have been leased and maintained. We owe a tribute to those people and should provide them with proper housing. Indeed, we have a duty in terms of how we treat our veterans. I have spoken in the House on a number of occasions on the issue of their medals and whether we can allow members of the Armed Forces to accept medals from other nations, such as Commonwealth nations. I hope that we will discuss that issue as well. The Minister referred to the Armed Forces Act and the Armed Forces covenant and how they will be reviewed. In that review we have to consider the ways in which we are failing as well as the ways in which we are succeeding. We owe a duty to those who fight for us and stand for us in the Armed Forces.