Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Mark Francois and Richard Foord

2nd reading
Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind intervention. It is true that we have sparred in this Chamber—famously, on one occasion—but I utterly agree with the spirit of his intervention, which I am sure carries the support of the entire House tonight.

There are a number of measures in the Bill to improve reserve service, which was mentioned by multiple Members, including the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), and the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome). The measures cover the potential transition to war and the regularising of call-up liabilities across all three services. We think that the proposals largely make sense—though I have to confess that I recently turned 60, and seeing that the Minister wants to extend the call-up liability to 65, I had best dust off my old set of webbing at the back of the garage somewhere just in case.

[Richard Foord]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Mr Francois]

I want to make a bit of progress, but perhaps later if I have time.

Turning to housing, I should declare a different interest, as this was an area I cared about very much when I served as an MOD Minister. When I left ministerial office in 2016, the then Prime Minister Theresa May commissioned me and a small team to write a report about military recruitment, including terms of service such as service housing. We eventually entitled it “Filling the Ranks”, and it was submitted to the Prime Minister, with a copy to the Defence Secretary, in 2017. The report made 20 recommendations for improving recruitment, ranging from better advertising and further expansion of cadet units through to taking a more realistic approach to minor medical ailments such as mild eczema and temporary childhood asthma. Nineteen of the recommendations were accepted and actioned, to varying degrees, but unfortunately the one that was not was to consider sacking Capita—or according to Private Eye “Crapita”. Unfortunately, I never managed to persuade our Ministers to do that, despite the company’s truly awful record on Army recruitment.

The peer review of “Filling the Ranks” was positive. However, as we were making visits to military establishments and interviewing everyone from privates to very senior officers, including on many of the issues contained in the Bill, in nearly every case within 15 minutes of talking about recruitment, we found ourselves involved in a related conversation about retention. In simple terms, we learned very quickly that there was no point widening the aperture of the recruitment tap if we could not put a retention plug in the sink.

We were, therefore, delighted to be recommissioned to undertake a second report specifically into retention, which we subsequently entitled “Stick or Twist?”, as we thought that that encapsulated the serviceman’s dilemma, and which was eventually submitted to the new Prime Minister—one Boris Johnson—in February 2020, a month before the country went into lockdown. This report touched on a number of facets of the armed forces covenant, which are also part of the Bill. I have copies of both reports here with me.

Quite a few of the recommendations in “Stick or Twist?” were adopted, and the then Defence Secretary Ben Wallace used it to persuade the Treasury to provide some extra tens of millions of pounds to improve childcare facilities at a number of bases around the country. It was worth doing the report if only for that. I should like to pay tribute to the small team that helped me to compile the two reports: Colonel—now Brigadier—Simon Goldstein, himself a former distinguished reservist; and my two researchers Mrs Sophie Doward-Jones and Mr Rory Boden, who worked tirelessly to produce two documents written in a Select Committee style, with all the work that that entails, for the attention of the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary.

Again, however, the most controversial suggestion in “Stick or Twist?” was not adopted. It was a proposal to form a forces housing association and thus bring in expertise from the registered social landlord sector to better manage service families accommodation—SFA. Frankly, at the time this was simply too much for the vested interests in the MOD’s Defence Infrastructure Organisation to accept. Nevertheless, I was delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), the shadow Defence Secretary, announced a few months ago our intention to introduce such a body if we return to government. The Armed Forces Bill has much to say on this topic—as indeed have many Members this evening—especially in clause 3, which heralds the creation of a defence housing service. This is conceptually similar in some ways to what was first recommended in “Stick or Twist?” six years ago, but with some important differences. I genuinely look forward to debating the respective merits of the two approaches with the Minister in Committee.

The Bill also touches on the issue of the armed forces covenant, which is a matter that we have discussed in this House on many occasions. In essence, the intention is to spread the authority of the covenant to cover other Government Departments, including Education and the NHS. We have a number of suggestions for how this process might be improved—for instance, in special needs education, which we hope to explore in Committee. I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) for what she said about the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham. I had the privilege of visiting the military unit there on two occasions—once in the company of His Royal Highness, the then Prince of Wales, now His Majesty the King—and I echo everything she said about the excellence of that department at that hospital in caring for those who have served their country.

The Bill goes into some detail about potential improvements in the service justice system. This touches in part on a number of quite sensitive areas, not least those highlighted by my former Defence Committee colleague Sarah Atherton in what became known as the Atherton report. We shall again attempt to explore the merits and details of those proposals in Committee.

Before I conclude, I want to refer to the remarks of President Trump about the brave soldiers who fought alongside the United States and other allies in Afghanistan. Would that he had not said such things, especially as our troops also fought with the Americans in Iraq and in the caves of Bora Bora in 2001 after the United States invoked article 5 after 9/11—the only nation ever to do that. We traditionally avoid discussing royal matters in this House, but if it is true that President Trump’s volte face on this was in some way due to royal intervention, all I can say is: God save the King.

We should endeavour to take a broadly positive attitude to the Bill, but I must caution that there are two areas where the traditional consensus might struggle. First, the Government claim to be fully committed to the two principles of the armed forces covenant—namely, that no members of the wider armed forces family, be they regulars, reservists, veterans or their loved ones, should suffer any disadvantage as a result of their military service, and that special treatment may in some cases be appropriate, especially for the wounded or bereaved. All that rings hollow, however, when we see what the Government are currently doing to our brave Northern Ireland veterans—a matter we were debating in the House just last Wednesday evening over Labour’s remedial order to undermine the Conservative legacy Act, which protects our veterans. Over 100 Labour MPs failed to back that order on the night, including, interestingly, the Prime Minister himself, who abstained, as did over half the Cabinet, including the Defence Secretary and even the Armed Forces Minister. The Government have performed 13 U-turns in the past few months alone, and we very much hope for a 14th U-turn over two-tier justice and facilitating lawfare, especially against our own vital special forces, allowing our brave Northern Ireland veterans to live out their lives in peace instead.