Armed Forces Covenant

Dan Byles Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that is key to this whole debate. As I said earlier, we had a duty to try to get a balance between, on the one hand, wanting to preserve the chain of command and, on the other, the legitimate interests of the wider service community, charities and the public. We did not, therefore, want to create a set of rights that could have had the armed forces tied up in European courts for ever, which would have been an utterly inappropriate use of their time and funding, but we did want to set out in the law of this land the principles about where there should be no disadvantage and where there should be special care, if required. It will be against those principles that future Secretaries of State for Defence will be judged and I think the balance is appropriate. We have looked at all the legal implications in great detail over a very long time and we believe that this is an appropriate balance to strike.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

As another former serving soldier, may I, too, warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement today, particularly the very clear message that this is about more than just the MOD? Does he agree that if we are going to make this work, it might be time to review the way in which other Departments, such as the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health, manage the way in which they deal with soldiers, veterans and reservists?

[Dr Fox]

I must tell my hon. Friend that the Prime Minister has made it very clear to all my Cabinet colleagues that the military covenant does not apply just to the Ministry of Defence, but is entirely a cross-departmental responsibility. All members of the Government—indeed, all Members of Parliament—have a duty to ensure that what we are putting in place today is applied equally across all parts of the United Kingdom and across all parts of government.