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.