Lord Beamish
Main Page: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beamish's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Anna Soubry
The ombudsman will play a huge part in making sure that all our services, notably the Army, now really do improve their statistics, but there are other measures that we need to introduce by way of legislation. The system needs to change, and I am confident that the sorts of proposals that Dr Atkins has come up with, many of which, if not all of them, I support, as do others, will make the sort of progress that we really now must see.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I add my thanks to Susan Atkins, who has done a great job in establishing the service complaints ombudsman. The Minister mentioned the ombudsman, and it was welcomed across the House when the Government announced that they would go down that route. Can the Minister tell me the exact time scale? Will legislative time be found in the next Session to ensure that the ombudsman is in place before the next general election?
Anna Soubry
I think we all know that I cannot say, even if I knew, whether any such legislative moves will be made in the Queen’s Speech.