Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Amanda Martin Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

I declare an interest and a huge sense of pride in taking part in this debate: I have cousins who serve in the Army and the Royal Air Force, and a son in the Royal Navy, all of whom are under 30. Hopefully, because of the Bill, they are at the start of long and successful armed forces careers. Also, my constituency of Portsmouth North is the home of the Royal Navy. I am glad that the Minister for the Armed Forces, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), is not here to argue about that.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard)]

I think he is!

[Amanda Martin]

I meant the other one—my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Moor View (Fred Thomas). I am proud to be part of a mission-led Government but, as the Secretary of State said earlier, no mission from a Labour Government is complete unless it is our first duty to keep our country safe. Peace and security are hard earned and require constant vigilance and a well-staffed and—dare I aspire to say—a happy armed forces workforce.

This Bill is groundbreaking in its mission, with 183,000 service personnel and their families at its heart. It provides the opportunity and the authority for an independent commissioner to investigate welfare complaints not only from those serving, but from their families. It also gives the commissioner the opportunity and the authority to horizon scan, to highlight trends, to visit our bases and listen to personnel and their families, to launch investigations when needed and, ultimately, to improve the world of work and the lives of those who so often put this country first.

I welcome the stance of the whole House and the cross-party commitment to this Bill. Real change cannot come quickly enough. Attrition rates continue to grow and morale among our service personnel continues to plummet. At the moment, recruitment is outstripped by those leaving, so retention is a real concern. Despite 81% of our service personnel feeling supported by their families and their colleagues, it is upsetting that almost 50% do not feel that their families and their family life are supported by the service. Impact on family and personal life remains the top factor influencing those leaving the services.

It would be remiss of me not to note that in my Portsmouth North constituency the concerns around armed forces housing are very high. With three quarters of our personnel living in service accommodation, it is vital to be able to hear the voice of those serving and their families, and to use that to improve housing, communities, childcare and the lives of our forces and their families. This Government are serious about keeping our country safe and making our armed services a priority. With a pay rise already awarded, with an announcement on childcare provision already made, with a new cyber-route and the cutting of red tape in recruitment, and now with a Bill providing an armed forces champion, with real voices and real experiences at its centre, this is a step to building back that eroded trust and pride. Just as I do when my son returns from sea, we as a Government are putting our arms around service personnel and their families.

This will not be easy, and it will not be quick. Issues will be uncovered that will be uncomfortable and possibly costly. Cultures might need to change, the Secretary of State will be presented with reports and independent investigations, and Parliament will need to address these issues. Success or failure will be measured and voiced, as it should be. Will the Minister assure me that, however difficult the outcomes, the reports and the words that we hear from our service personnel, we will commit to having a truly independent commissioner, so that our armed services feel they have the trust to go to them? In delivering this Bill into law, we will not only say, but show by our actions, how much we value the service and dedication of our armed forces personnel and their families.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill (First sitting)

Amanda Martin Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Good morning. We are now sitting in public and the proceedings are being broadcast. Before we start to hear from our witnesses, do any Members wish to make declarations of interest in connection with the Bill?

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

My son is in the Navy.

[The Chair]

I think we can forgive you for that; thank you. We will now hear oral evidence from Mariette Hughes, the Service Complaints Ombudsman. Before calling the first Member to ask a question, I remind the Committee that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill and that we must stick to the timings of the programme order that we agreed. For this panel, we have until 9.55 am. Will the witness introduce herself for the record and say a few words?

Mariette Hughes: Good morning; thank you for having me here. I am Mariette Hughes, the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the armed forces. I am pleased to be here to talk about the Bill, which is a positive and important piece of legislation. I am happy to answer any and all questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

Q Thank you, Mariette, for being with us today. Is it possible to go into the timeline of how we have got to this point? You talked about limited powers, and I completely agree with you. From your perspective, from raising those concerns with the MOD and Ministers, how have we got to this point where we are sitting here talking about the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill?

Mariette Hughes: I am not entirely sure I can answer that one for you. We have approached it from two different paths that have converged at a very convenient time. I am aware that the new Government have been pushing this very hard and that it is something they feel very strongly about. I am certainly in favour of it. Separately to that, within the ombudsman community there is a lot of talk about own motion powers and thematic investigations. I think there are only one or two other schemes in the UK that currently have those powers. This is game-changing for everyone. We have been talking about this since I came into role.

When we set up our new five-year strategic objectives, one was around changing our performance, one was around changing the relationship with the services, and the third one was around looking at the strategic and political landscape and how we need to be fixed. What powers do we need to be able to effect real change for service personnel? This has been part of our ongoing conversations for around five years.

[Amanda Martin]

Q Thank you for your service and for doing what seems to be a great job in the circumstances. You alluded to the fact that this has been a long time coming, that you have been pushing for this and that there had previously been no backlog. The aim of the new Bill is to improve service licence conditions for service personnel. I have spoken to a number of them in my Portsmouth constituency, and one of the concerns, which you echoed, is that there seems to be a delta between the people who come forward and the things that happen. How do you see a change in the commissioner role improving things for those who come forward? Some service personnel say that they still have concerns around the trust and whether it will affect their career if they make a complaint.

Mariette Hughes: Trust and confidence in the service complaints system is something that we have been driving hard as SCOAF, and that work would continue. This is what I think is interesting about the commissioner role. When we do outreach visits, I sit down and do focus groups with service personnel, where I kick all the chain of command out of the room and get them to tell me what they actually feel and experience. What is really interesting for me is that in those conversations, a number of issues, frustrations, grumbles and gripes are raised, and they are not the sorts of things that normally become service complaints, because to the individual they do not feel big enough or they do not feel that they have been personally wronged—it is just part and parcel of their service life—or they do not think that raising a service complaint will change it. We have those conversations because it relates to service complaints. It talks about that mental resilience, the things they are putting up with that chip away and then lead them to situations where they feel they have to complain.

Under the commissioner’s powers, you would be able to raise those issues and put those into reports that can be laid in the House and brought into the light—all the issues that people are telling us about, such as their accommodation or concerns around food or policies that affect their families. At the moment, I am gathering that information as good background for service complaints, but the commissioner role would be able to take that forward and say, “This is affecting all three services” or “Actually, it is affecting this service more than the other.” So this really rich information will help promote those welfare things that currently do not have enough light shining on them.

[Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)]

Can I ask for your views on the German armed forces commissioner? Obviously, this measure has been modelled on that.

Mariette Hughes: You can, of course. I know Dr Eva Högl quite well. We are both members of the International Conference of Ombuds Institutions for the Armed Forces, which is a mouthful, so I will say ICOAF. We have a conference every year. She is an absolutely incredible person and has done really good things with that office. It is an interesting model for this to be based on. There are some differences that we have to be alive to. The key one for me—apologies if this comes up later—is around the terminology. Dr Högl is the Commissioner for the Armed Forces. Germany does not have a fully established ombudsman scheme in the same way that the UK does. We have 22 established schemes under the Ombudsman Association. On Eva’s website, she describes herself as “the ombudsman for the armed forces”. It is simply that the title “parliamentary commissioner” fits with their legal framework.

There are also some interesting differences. Eva has had these powers for a long time and uses them very well. However, she does not have the oversight of service complaints that I have, so this would be an extended remit compared with the German model. It is brilliant to draw inspiration from it. Being members of those communities together, we are always looking at best practice in other countries. There are necessarily some differences in this country, but it is certainly a good starting point.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have to finish at 9.55 am, but do you want to ask a very quick question, Amanda Martin? You have one minute.

[Amanda Martin]

Q One of the biggest changes is made by clause 3, which allows people outside the armed forces to make a complaint or raise a concern. Do you think that will be a good thing?

Mariette Hughes: I think it absolutely will be a good thing. The Bill pitches it right: such individuals will be able to raise concerns but, as I understand it, the intention is to form a secondary service complaints system for them all to go through. Essentially, those relevant family members are people we expect to live in certain conditions; there are various aspects of service life that apply to them, that they simply have to live by and that affect everything they do, but they are not subject to service law so they cannot come into the system. Understanding how that affects them and how we are providing for the family members of those who serve us and protect us is really important. It also gets around that problem where individuals might not want to raise a complaint because it will go on their record; their spouse might be able to put it forward for them, and say, “They would never say this to you, but this is really affecting our family and I am worried.”

We also have the issue where we know that people still do not like to talk about their emotions or about what is affecting them. It is their family members and the people around them who see clearer than anyone what is happening and when there is a concern. Giving them an avenue to put their hand up and say, “Look, I think we need a bit of help here,” or, “I think you need to look at this issue,” is absolutely brilliant.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of the time for the Committee to ask questions. I thank our witness on behalf of the Committee. We will now move to the next panel.

Examination of Witnesses

Angela Kitching and Ted Arnold gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Reed]

Q On that point, how do you think the new role will be communicated downward, from a commanding officer to their service personnel? What level of severity do you think would warrant going to see the commissioner, and how do you think that would be communicated to soldiers?

Lt General Sir Andrew Gregory: Service people are intelligent people and they will make an appropriate judgment. The commissioner will need quite a lot of support to manage two quite different things: the individual issues that will percolate up to that person, and the systemic themes they want to investigate, such as poor-quality housing or whatever issues it happens to be. The commissioner and his or her office will challenge Ministers in Parliament with their reports.

As goes communicating to young servicepeople, you now have a separate opportunity. You have someone who will pick up your issues and run with them for you. I think people will get that actually, I really do. I understand that there is a fine balance here, but if intelligent commanders at various levels see issues that really are to the detriment of their people, they will start to have a conversation. People will have to judge it very carefully with this commissioner, but I can see that happening.

Lt General Sir Nicholas Pope: I would like to tier the answer to this question into political ambition, policy formulation, service delivery and lived experience. You will be looking to the Armed Forces Commissioner to tap into all those areas. On the point that Andrew brings up about lived experience, one of the aspects of the commissioner’s work will be direct interventions with individuals who raise issues that concern them. That is fine and necessary. Part of the commissioner’s function is about dealing with individuals at their individual level.

The next issue, to bring it to the service delivery level, is about whether the system that the Ministry of Defence has set up is sufficient to deal systemically with some of the issues that individuals bring to the commissioner’s attention. That takes you back into policy formulation. To what extent are the current policies—the service complaints system, for example—designed to be efficient, effective and fair? Do we need to look at the policies as well?

The final level becomes a political choice, I suspect. Thinking about the accommodation, we know the answer to this already. We know that service families accommodation and single-living accommodation is not where we would like it to be, but within a finite budget are there political choices to start to address these issues more systemically? The commissioner’s function will tap into each of those four tiers of activity.

I suspect that we will look these things with the commissioner when the commissioner’s report is laid before Parliament. Having the report laid before Parliament and having the opportunity at parliamentary level to debate the report feeds back into the MOD. To what extent will the recommendations that the commissioner makes be manifested in demonstrable changes in the way that the Department thinks? I think about the last eight Service Complaints Commissioner and Service Complaints Ombudsman reports: all of them have said that the system is not effective, efficient and fair, QED, so is the report driving the change in the Department that we seek?

[Amanda Martin]

Q You touched on this, Sir Andrew, when you talked about the size of the job and the role. Do you think that the proposals for resourcing the commissioner’s office are adequate to fulfil those functions? You talked a lot about trust and transparency, and others have spoken about impact. To either of you, is there anything else we need to think about to make sure that the interaction between chain of command and the commissioner is coherent and successful?

Lt General Sir Andrew Gregory: In terms of resources, the honest answer is, how long is a piece of string? Would one always like more? Possibly. Assuming the Bill is approved by Parliament, the Government will want to see the first commissioner given a fair chance to succeed. Once that person is in situ and has looked at the scale of the job, they will challenge the Secretary of State for Defence in particular. Given the ability of the commissioner to go back to Parliament, he or she could then say, “I can’t do my job.” I think there will be an appropriate balance struck.

In terms of this business of gaining trust, once again— I agree with the earlier answers from Mariette and others—it is down to the person to really project themselves, to get out, to be seen on the ground and to talk to the various parts of the community. That is how it is going to work. So in the first year, this person will spend an awful lot of time doing that.

Lt General Sir Nicholas Pope: I would add that I think the figures in the paper are based on analysis from compatriots in Germany and build on the current SCOAF function, so there is a logic to them. Whether we in the Department choose to expand or contract is probably an issue for three or four years hence.

I really buy the idea of trust. The word I would use is “culture”. I will be interested to see how the commissioner starts to pick at some of the issues we have regularly seen through the Wigston report, the Lyons report, the Atherton report and so on, to start to get at the cultural issues and move towards a more inclusive armed forces.

Lt General Sir Andrew Gregory: If I could come back for a second bite at the cherry, the other challenge is seeing through recommendations, which does worry me. I have been part of the armed forces covenant reference group almost since it was established in 2010. As part of that, the Secretary of State is tasked to put a report before Parliament each year. Some of the themes are consistent in all those reports—I think that is the polite way of putting it.

How do we make sure that recommendations made by the commissioner are either addressed or properly answered? It goes back to the question of resources for service family accommodation and single living accommodation. We cannot do it at the moment, but we will go on a journey to improve life for families in that way. That is one of the things that worries me, because these things have their moment in court—their moment in Parliament—and then we move on and forget them.

[Helen Maguire]

Q Thank you for coming. General Gregory, the armed forces are a tri-service, and there are slightly different cultures within that, and the Gurkhas as well. Do you feel that the role of the commissioner needs to be adapted slightly, in order to be trusted by service personnel?

Lt General Sir Andrew Gregory: You are absolutely right. We are all part of the armed forces but we are quite different as tribes, and then within the Army we have sub-tribes called regiments, and they are pretty different too, each with its own traditions and culture, and things like that. Then you have the Brigade of Gurkhas, with which Nick has served very closely, and which has a wonderful tradition and history. How do you capture all that? We do it within SSAFA. We support the whole community. How do we do it? We take the case of each person and each family on its merits. We support 2,000 Gurkha families each year. The support we provide to them is quite different from the support we provide to some of our other beneficiaries.

I am flannelling a bit but, to answer your question, I think the commissioner will need to be sufficiently knowledgeable about the armed forces so that he or she understands the various components of how they live their lives. As I am sure many of you know, Navy personnel have traditionally lived their lives—this is a generalisation—in different ways from the Army. The Navy serviceperson goes to sea and their family stays static, perhaps around Portsmouth, Faslane, Devonport or near their own family. The Army has traditionally had more camp followers, and families have moved as the regiment has moved. That means it is very different, and it puts different pressures on both the serviceperson and their family. The commissioner will have to get his or her head around that.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill (Second sitting)

Amanda Martin Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Francois]

Q This is my last question. You mentioned SEND, which I think we have already agreed we might discuss on Thursday, because it is so important. Could you say a bit about the work that your charity has done on the SEND front?

Mandy Harding: We realise that a lot of our families have “plus, plus, plus” issues. We know that across the country there are issues with SEND. Getting assessments is very difficult and transferring across local authorities is particularly tricky. The issues were laid out quite well in the “Living in our Shoes” report by Professor Jan Walker, which was commissioned in 2019. She laid out some recommendations, most of which—over 100—were accepted by the Government at the time. We have built on that report. We have continued to investigate need; we have gone out to beneficiaries to find out what is going on and what they need. That is the power of using commissioning principles in our grant-making, which is quite unique. We can then commission with the use of grants, having seen who the best provider is.

One of the big pieces of work we are doing is around neurodiversity. It is a big area of work, and I have already booked to speak to both my colleagues either side of me, because we would like to make this a tri-service piece of work going forward. I think that is what will be required to enable the changes that we can see might need to happen.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Q Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for your time this afternoon. All three of you will have seen much during your working lives and in the roles you have now, and had extensive conversations with service personnel. We are aware that there is an attrition rate from the service, low morale, dissatisfaction with the role and various issues to do with that. When we look at different surveys, key themes come out a number of times to do with accommodation, career prospects and family life.

The provision in clause 3 provides that service complaints can be made from people who are not necessarily service personnel, which is different from what happens with the ombudsman now. First, what are your thoughts on that? Secondly, one of the themes that has come through is the need for trust and transparency about the impact from anything that the new role does. How could that change enhance that?

Mandy Harding: I can take the first part of the question. I referred to the “Living in our Shoes” report by Professor Jan Walker. That report was very significant because it identified that when one person serves, the whole family serves. Having access for families is a welcome addition and my colleagues at the Naval Families Federation will be able to speak more effectively on that. It is not my area of expertise, because I am a grant maker, but I am sure that they would have more to say.

Air Commodore Simon Harper: I agree completely. We have a phrase in the Air Force: “Support the family”. You retain the service person by supporting the family. In respect to the question you ask, I would be supportive of the service family having that access. As a charity, it is important that we recognise the offer to the serving person. That offer is effectively a psychological contract that covers many different aspects, whether it be pay, pensions, housing, accommodation, food, or ability to get access to medical and dental care— and, indeed, the charities, too, play a role in that offer. It affects the serving families in different points at different times. It is very difficult to say there is a single issue or a few issues that are causing the level of dissatisfaction reported through the armed forces continuous attitude surveys and the like and through the families continuous attitude survey.

We are a families federation, and provide more detail on certain families. It is a multi-faceted issue, though, and difficult to pinpoint one particular place. It is important to understand that that offer is multifaceted and is a psychological contract at its very heart. It could take a number of things, which begin over time, to wear away the good will of that family, which then leads to dissatisfaction and, ultimately, people leaving the services.

Col. Darren Doherty: I do not think I can add much more to that, or comment on access to the service complaints system from beyond the serving person. I can speak about the wider family context and put it against what we provide.

As the Army Benevolent Fund, we provide a lifetime of support to serving and former soldiers and their immediate families, including the bereaved, when they are in need. That has built up since the Army Benevolent Fund was formed, 80 years ago. Even then, we understood the importance of the family unit and the importance of supporting the continuum of service, not just of the service person but of the whole family as they continue through the journey: joining, leaving and then serving, whether as a reservist, or a regular reservist, as in my case, and as a veteran, with the family that serves alongside them. That person, family or service person might be bereaved as well. It is about that total inclusivity.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Q You will have seen the witness list for today, and you will notice that the only people we do not get to consult are the military chain of command because their views are, for constitutional reasons, vested in the Minister. I will ask the air commodore and the colonel to rewind a bit to when they were serving in the military as part of the chain of command on frontline operations; I know you both served time in the training base. Do you see the potential for the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill, as drafted, to erode the authority of the military chain of command?

Air Commodore Simon Harper: I am happy to take the question. Yes, I suppose there is that potential. The chain of command still has a vital role. Where I could see the benefit is that, having gone through and made my point about the offer being multifaceted, the response for the serving person and their family is multifaceted as well. The Armed Forces Commissioner can play a key role in that.

There will be times, I suspect, when the legislation will come into conflict—perhaps that is the wrong term—with the chain of command. I still think the chain of command must be the overarching way in which military effect and operational output is delivered. That is the success of how it is done. But I think that, appropriately placed, the Armed Forces Commissioner can support, augment and, in co-operation with the chain of command, improve the lives of the serving person and the family. There is a risk, of course, but I think it can work.

Col. Darren Doherty: I agree with all that. There is potential for the Bill to undermine the chain of command and potential for it to work against the chain of command; much depends on the selection of the right individual to do the role and on the role being developed and there being a framework for operating how the office goes about its business beyond what is laid out in the Bill. This is about building trust and confidence with those it supports, including individuals who might bring things to the attention of the commissioner, and also about the confidence of the wider organisation as well.

To answer your question, there is that potential, but everything that I have read in the Bill, heard in the debates and read in Hansard is in people’s minds. I listened to some of the earlier speakers today comparing it the outwith-the-chain-of-command ways that we have with dealing with issues now. You will well remember dealing with the padre and medical officers as something outside the chain of command.

All those things do not happen overnight. Those need to be built up as individual relationships in terms of trust within organisations. This is something new—a step beyond what the ombudsman provides. It will take time and careful implementation, from a practical perspective, for it to work. But I do see that there is huge benefit in having such an office there for the individual and the organisation and in support of the chain of command as well. They can potentially all work together.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Briefly, please.

Luke Pollard: I would expect them to have regular meetings with the chain of command—senior officers, base commanders, and people who form the rank and file of all our services. I think it is important the commissioner has the ability to decide who to interact with, and the ability to not only have interactions but—as set out in the legislation—to request information from the Ministry of Defence. It is not only about the ability to hold conversations, dialogue and engagement but to actually get the information required to inform their recommendations.

[Amanda Martin]

Q We have heard about the erosion of the contract and that the same issues are raised time and time again. On top of that, the MOD has already produced several independent although non-binding reports to Parliament—Haythornthwaite, Kerslake, Sheldon, Etherton, Atherton. What makes this different? How and why will this make a difference?

Luke Pollard: With the exception of the Atherton review, which was a House of Commons Defence Committee report—a very good one—most of those reports have been externally commissioned: often commissioned by the Government to report on an issue they had chosen. The point of the commissioner is that they would not be informed by ministerial priorities or by looking at the areas the Government of the day wanted to look at; they would be informed by the representation that they received from armed forces personnel and their families. I think that is a really important distinction.

In many cases, reports have been commissioned but things have not necessarily been done. This legislation provides a route for parliamentarians to receive the report and to be able to raise questions and concerns. I would expect the commissioner to be a regular attendee of the House of Commons Defence Committee. It would be for that Committee to determine how, when and in what format that would take place, but I would expect there to be a brighter spotlight on those issues, precisely to stop these reports and recommendations being long-grassed, as we might have seen over the last decade.

[Terry Jermy]

Q In the very first witness comments, I was struck by the observation that, because the current ombudsman role is funded by the Government, there is perhaps an acknowledgment that that weakens the role’s independence. Of course, the new commissioner will be funded by the Government as well. Are you aware of that concern? I appreciate Helen Maguire’s comments about independence. Are you confident that there are sufficient safeguards around independence to encourage people to come forward?

Luke Pollard: I am. The reason we have drafted the legislation as we have is to be absolutely clear about a separation of this commissioner’s office from the Ministry of Defence. I think the point that Mariette was making in her evidence is that the funding has to come from somewhere. However, I think it is the way that the commissioner is appointed, how they operate and how they build trust and confidence with our people that will build the independence in the role.

We can legislate for independence and separation, as we have done, but it is the operation of the role that will build trust with the people. That is why I will expect the commissioner to be on the road, visiting our forces and having those conversations, in order to build the trust. I will expect them to have a robust scrutiny process in terms of their appointment, and to be able to give Ministers a tough ride on the delivery of the issues that matter.

That is the reason we are doing this. If this role did not have any teeth, there would be no point in legislating for it. I want this role to be able to carry a really bright spotlight, to shine on the issues that are affecting our people—because ultimately, if we do that, we recruit more people, we retain more people and more people want to rejoin our armed forces, improving morale and service life. That ultimately improves our operational effectiveness as a military.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill (Third sitting)

Amanda Martin Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 12th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Francois]

There are two questions there. On the first, the honest answer is that it depends on the KC. In my limited experience, different King’s counsels tend to charge different rates. One would hope that the commissioner would employ someone who was good at their job, so yes there would be a public expenditure cost.

If the hon. Gentleman will permit me, I am going to come in a moment to the exact rationale for why we have sought to mandate that at least one of the commissioner’s staff should be a qualified KC; he slightly pre-empts me. But I hope I can convince the Committee that there is a genuinely good reason for doing so and I am going to produce at least one real-world example. If that satisfies the hon. Gentleman, I will make some progress. Did the hon. Member for Portsmouth North, sitting next to him, also seek to intervene or have I inadvertently answered her question?

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

I will come to it afterwards.

[Mr Francois]

Okay, thank you.

We live in an increasingly litigious world, including the wider prevalence of so-called lawfare issues on the modern battlefield. Therefore it seems important to us that the commissioner should have access to senior legal advice in carrying out their duties. We believe that could best be provided by a qualified King’s counsel, perhaps specialising in areas of employment law and other matters that would relate to the welfare of armed service personnel and their families.

There is a live issue in the armed forces community: if they take life, which sometimes they are required to do in the service of the country, what are the legal implications for them, maybe even decades later? The issue is generally referred to as lawfare. Let me give a specific example of why this matters, Mr Efford. I am going to refer to a case that has concluded; I reassure you and your Clerk that the sub judice rule does not apply, I believe, because the case is over.

On 10 December, the BBC reported, under the heading “Ex-lawyer spared jail over false Iraq War claims”, that

“Phil Shiner was given a two-year suspended sentence at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to three counts of fraud relating to legal aid claims made in 2007.”

For background,

“The former boss of Public Interest Lawyers was struck off by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2017 for pursuing false torture and murder allegations against British troops.”

The article continues:

“A lengthy inquiry into wider allegations of abuse at the hands of British soldiers established ‘beyond doubt’ that all the most serious allegations had been found to be ‘wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies’.”

According to the National Crime Agency, Mr Shiner received around £3 million towards the cost of legal aid for the cases in which he was involved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his accurate reading of the legislation. On Second Reading, the Minister made the point that the legislation is drafted to be facilitative. For instance—we will come to this later—it does not necessarily define exactly what are and are not “general service welfare matters”. It provides a broad remit. But for the reasons that I hope I have been able to articulate, we believe that although the schedule that the hon. Gentleman mentioned would facilitate the Armed Forces Commissioner in seeking to appoint a legal adviser, that would have a spending implication. It could be—it is not inconceivable—that some in the Ministry of Defence would baulk at that. The intention of putting the provision into the Bill is to include beyond peradventure the right of the commissioner to seek to appoint a senior legal adviser. In a sense, it does not compel the commissioner to do that, but it gives them that power very clearly.

[Amanda Martin]

You say that your amendment does not tell the commissioner that they should make the appointment, but it states:

“The Commissioner’s staff must include a King’s Counsel”.

Since there is a “must”, what you just said is not correct. If we agree to this amendment, we are saying that the commissioner, who we want to be independent, will not have the choice of who they include in their staff, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham mentioned. Your amendment says “must include”.

[The Chair]

Order. Can I remind Members about the use of the word “you”?

[Amanda Martin]

Sorry.

[The Chair]

“You” refers to me in the Chair, not to the person opposite. Just a gentle reminder about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I will respond in kind to what the Minister says. As he will recall, his calculation was that even if the KC that we have been debating conceptually were full-time—we can argue about the rate—it might cost about £1.3 million a year. We never stipulated that it would be a full-time post; I think the Committee has explored. The essence of amendment 9 is that the commissioner would have access to high-level legal advice. Even if it were £1.3 million, given that our policy going into the election was to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030, I think we could have found £1.3 million within that number. The Minister is the one with the challenge, because he does not have a date for 2.5%. If he ever gets one, we would all like to hear it. I think we could have afforded the post, even if it had been full-time—and we did not mandate that it had to be.

[Amanda Martin]

My understanding is that the last time that the defence budget was at 2.5% was under a Labour Government, and that in the 14 years under the Conservatives there was not a 2.5% budget.

[Mr Francois]

That is correct, and under the Tories in the mid-1990s it was well over 3%. The problem is that a lot happened in the 14 years, including a war in Ukraine. That is why we probably need to spend 2.5% as quickly as possible.

Even if the Minister’s calculation is correct, by the time a senior NCO in the British Army gets to the rank of WO2, the King—or the Queen, before him—will probably have spent the best part of £1 million on training them. If they then leave, perhaps because they have had a very bad experience at the hands of the likes of Mr Shiner, that is £1 million of investment that has just walked out the door.

To be fair, the Minister understands the pressure. According to some figures that I received in answer to a recent parliamentary question, the strength of the British Regular Army is 71,300. This was in October. The establishment strength—the book strength, or what it is meant to be on paper—is 73,000. It was 72,500, but then there was an add-back of another 500, partly for the two Rangers Battalions. The British Regular Army is now nearly 2,000 soldiers short of what it should be, even on paper. Unfortunately, the trend is that more people are leaving than joining.

I am not highlighting that point in order to say that the whole lawfare issue is the only reason that people are leaving the British armed forces. That is not my argument, but it is one reason, and it is likely to get worse unless the Government do something about it. That includes doing something about the so-called Northern Ireland legacy Act.

I hope I have made the point sufficiently this morning; I am grateful for the way in which the Minister has acknowledged it and dealt with it. As I think the point has been made, I will not press amendment 9 or 10. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the schedule be the First schedule to the Bill.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill (Fourth sitting)

Amanda Martin Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 12th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Francois]

In a moment. Having raised this issue with the Minister, who has a look on his face that says, “This wasn’t in my folder,” I very much hope that he will, being an artful chap, seek some inspiration and extemporise by saying something encouraging so that we do not feel it necessary to press the amendment. I was going to conclude my remarks there, but I do not want to be accused of curtailing the debate, so I will give way first to the hon. Lady and then to the hon. Gentleman.

[Amanda Martin]

Although we—and, I think, service personnel—recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns about pensions in relation to those specific incidents, I will make three points if I may. First, the amendment states that

“A ‘general service welfare matter’ may include issues relating to the provision of pensions”.

That would give a rather larger weighting to the direction of the commissioner, potentially over the direction of service personnel and their families. I talk to service personnel in my city of Portsmouth, which is the home of the Royal Navy, and they might prefer for it to state that a general service welfare matter may include issues relating to housing, postings, their professional careers, their rules of engagement and access to local services.

Including that single provision would direct the commissioner and would not allow for issues to come up from personnel and the grassroots—from our people on the ground. Should a matter come forward as an issue they want to raise, obviously it is in the gift of the commissioner to do so, but actually the amendment would limit things. From the conversations I have had with personnel in my area, this is not at the top of their list. They would not like to be directed on what they can bring forward to the commissioner.

[Mr Francois]

I understand the hon. Lady’s argument, but—

--- Later in debate ---

I know that work has been going on on this, so the purpose of my speech was to reiterate the issue and to give the Minister an opportunity to tell us, I hope, that progress has been made and that it will be easier for military personnel and their families with SEN children to port EHCPs from one LEA to another.

[Amanda Martin]

As a teacher who worked in Portsmouth North, where we have a large number of naval families, I absolutely agree with you that SEND is in crisis. For families who need to move, the concerns are amplified. I sit on the Education Committee, and SEND is one of the top priorities that we are looking at with this Government.

[Mr Francois]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. She will know, not least from her service on that important Committee, of what is called the statutory override. In a nutshell, local authorities must produce a balanced budget each year, but, because of the very great pressure on local authorities that are also LEAs, they have been allowed to overspend on SEN for several years because it is such a big pressure. Bluntly, it would have bankrupted some of them otherwise. She may be able to update us, but I understand that the default position is that the statutory override is due to expire in March 2026. In other words, when local authorities are planning their new budgets for the ’26-’27 financial year, those budgets will have to balance.

I served on the Public Accounts Committee for a couple of years in the previous Parliament. About a month ago, the National Audit Office produced a report, which I am sure the Education Committee will look at, basically saying that the current system is unsustainable. This will be a challenge for the new Government. I am not trying to make a partisan point here, but it was a challenge for the previous Government and it will be a challenge for the new Labour Government, too. I mention that just to drive home the scale of the SEN challenge. There is no evidence that armed forces personnel are proportionately more or less likely to have a special needs child than members of civilian communities, so statistically it is a big problem for them, too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I understand the thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s question. What it has to do with the Bill is that this issue cropped up quite a lot in the public evidence session. I respectfully refer him to the Hansard report of Tuesday’s proceedings. A number of witnesses raised the veterans issue, and I believe a number of members of the Committee followed up with questions. We had tabled the new clause by Monday night because we knew that there was concern within the veterans’ community about the independence of the OVA and therefore the independence of the Armed Forces Commissioner, which to be fair is a theme that we have discussed repeatedly today. That is the context in which the new clause was tabled on Monday evening, but it is worrying that one of the three veterans commissioners apparently felt compelled to resign because some in Government were seeking to crimp what they were trying to do on behalf of the veterans they were appointed to serve.

Now that the OVA is back within the MOD, and given that the decision was taken on the Government’s watch, I would like some reassurance from the Minister—we have a MOD Minister here, not a Cabinet Office Minister—that there will be no further attempts to impinge on the independence of any veterans commissioner by anyone in Government, any more than we would want them to impinge on the independence of the Armed Forces Commissioner. I have three very specific questions to that effect; then I will allow the Minister to reply.

First, where is the veterans commissioner for England? We were told, when I raised this issue on Second Reading, that the Department was working on it. At one point, there was going to be a UK-wide veterans commissioner, which then seemingly morphed into a veterans commissioner for England. We have one for Scotland and one for Wales—we had one for Northern Ireland too, but he resigned—so where are we on the veterans commissioner for England? Why should English veterans be at any disadvantage compared with their counterparts from the other three nations of the awesome foursome? Those English veterans served the Crown too. Where is their commissioner?

Secondly, what is the timetable for replacing the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner? Presumably the Government do not want that post to remain vacant for long, particularly with all the utter chaos over the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. Thirdly, what formal assurances can the Minister give on the record that this will not happen again? Those are my three questions.

[Amanda Martin]

You state—

[Mr Francois]

“He”!

[Amanda Martin]

Sorry. The right hon. Gentleman states that the Veterans Minister is vital and the fact that they do not sit in Cabinet now is a concern. Can he tell me which Tory MP sits in the shadow Cabinet to represent veterans?

[Mr Francois]

The clue is in the name: the shadow Cabinet is there to shadow the actual Cabinet. If there is not a Veterans Minister in the actual Cabinet, it is not necessarily axiomatic that there would be one in the shadow Cabinet.

To be clear, the decision to take the Veterans Minister out of the Cabinet and the Cabinet Office, and roll them in under the Ministry of Defence as—no disrespect—a junior Minister, was a decision taken by the Labour Government—[Interruption.] Excuse me—one at a time! I hear my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley to my left—dare I put it that way—saying that the Prime Minister promised he would not do that. It was a decision taken by the Labour Government. I have read out the comments from the commissioners, who are there to represent the interests of the veterans’ community; I am not imagining it. The community are clearly very concerned, so perhaps we could hear the Minister’s reply.