Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

On 25 June last year, speaking on the Ark Royal, the Prime Minister told our armed forces that he would enshrine the military covenant in law. Why is he watering down that commitment to a useless referencing?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not believe for a minute that that is what is being done. What is going to happen is that we are going to clearly reference the covenant in law and then the covenant will be published and debated in this House every year. It is vital that we are able to update and improve it every year, because our military personnel face so many changing circumstances. We are looking across government at all the things we can do, for example, on health care, on education, and on things such as council tax for soldiers serving overseas—these are many of the things that the last Government failed to do—to look after our armed service personnel.