Armed Forces Bill

Lord Coaker Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th July 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Coaker]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Scottish legislative consent granted, Northern Ireland and Welsh legislative consent sought.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords. I start by highlighting the interests I have declared: my son-in-law is an active reservist.

It is a great honour and pleasure to speak to the Armed Forces Bill, as I know it is for us all. We should be reminded that without the Armed Forces Bill, the current Armed Forces Act 2006—the legislation that provides a system of command, discipline and justice for His Majesty’s Armed Forces—could not continue in force beyond the end of this year.  

Since 1688 and the Bill of Rights, it is a constitutional requirement that Parliament, rather than the King or the Executive, has the authority to exert control over our Armed Forces. It is Parliament, through our common consent and the act of renewal, that ensures that there remains a legal basis for the continued existence of His Majesty’s Armed Forces. As such, the Bill is for the Armed Forces, although it goes beyond simply providing the legal framework for them to continue to exist as disciplined bodies. It is an opportunity to renew the nation’s contract with those who serve.

This substantial Bill does much for our current and former personnel, and the Armed Forces community as a whole, to provide better support, housing and protections for victims of crime, and to provide greater resilience for the nation by increasing the size and availability of the strategic reserves. It does this by delivering meaningful reform across four key pillars.

The Armed Forces covenant—the pledge between the nation and those who have served—will be strengthened by delivering on the manifesto commitment to place it fully into law. Establishing the defence housing service will allow us to properly manage, develop and improve the defence housing estate and make it fit for purpose for our Armed Forces personnel and their families. Providing the service courts and the service police with new powers to provide improved victim support and protections will bring it in line with the 10-year strategy to halve violence against women and girls. Reforms to boost the size and availability of the strategic reserve will reinforce the UK’s defence forces at a time of increasing global threats and uncertainty.

I shall say a little more about each of the four pillars. The Armed Forces covenant was introduced 15 years ago and has made a real difference to many in the Armed Forces community. At its heart is a promise between the nation and those who serve, those who have served, their families and the bereaved, recognising the unique demands and sacrifices of service life. It has already helped to reduce disadvantage for our Armed Forces community across the areas of housing, healthcare and education.

We recognise, however, that it must go further. Clause 2 therefore delivers on the Government’s manifesto commitment to place the Armed Forces covenant fully into law. It does this by broadening the covenant legal duty to 12 policy areas and, for the first time, the devolved Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and UK government departments, will be subject to the duty. This means that, in addition to housing, healthcare and education, the covenant will also apply to areas including social care, childcare, employment, taxation, social security, criminal justice, immigration and citizenship, pensions, transport and Armed Forces compensation.

On defence housing, the Government have a moral duty to provide safe and decent homes to service personnel and their families. They have been previously let down by homes that are not fit for purpose, and we are determined to change that. Underinvestment in defence housing over decades led to record lows in satisfaction with defence homes. The 1996 sale of tens of thousands of defence homes to Annington led to taxpayers picking up the bill for maintenance and rent to the tune of £600,000 a day.

However, just six months after being elected, the Government transferred 36,000 defence homes back into public ownership, reversing a privatisation that the Public Accounts Committee described as “disastrous”. The next task is to bring homes up to a decent standard—a standard that our service personnel and their families deserve. The Government therefore commissioned an independent review and, in November last year, we published our defence housing strategy—our plan for the wholesale renewal of defence housing, backed by a £9 billion investment over the next decade.

Clause 3 delivers on one of the recommendations of the defence housing strategy: the creation of a new stand-alone public body—the defence housing service. This will serve as a single point of accountability for defence housing, staffed by experts and with forces families represented as part of its governance. As such, it will put the needs of the forces and their families first. With a clear strategy, unprecedented investment and a dedicated organisation in the defence housing service, we will deliver on this once-in-a-generation opportunity to provide the safe and decent homes our forces and their families deserve.

Through the Bill, we will also deliver important reforms to the service justice system, especially in the area of victim support and protections. Clauses 5 to 10 provide a comprehensive package of protection measures, with Clauses 11, 12, 26 and 27 providing improved support and assistance to victims of offending. I add that, while these measures will strengthen the service justice system, we recognise that not all unacceptable behaviours reach the threshold of a criminal offence. That is why the Ministry of Defence continues to develop policies that seek to address unacceptable behaviours.

Through the Raising our Standards programme, we are tackling unacceptable behaviour and driving lasting cultural change across defence, with better training, clearer reporting systems and greater trust in leadership. The new VAWG prevention taskforce has been deployed to Catterick and to the south-west to assess lived experiences, tackle root causes of unacceptable behaviour and roll out effective interventions. Immediate initiatives are already being deployed, such as the recruitment of additional sexual assault referral nurses, who will cover the south-west, and the rollout of an independent legacy advocacy pilot that will support victims of sexual offences to understand their rights and what to expect when navigating the service justice system.

These policies, together with the separate service complaints process, now overseen by the recently appointed Armed Forces Commissioner, will also help ensure that unacceptable behaviour is challenged and addressed appropriately. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, as well as the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Kramer, that this improvement in culture also includes the whistleblower review. We will be meeting in due course before the publication of that review, which is now ready, subject to the noble Baronesses’ comments.

I move on to the package of measures relating to the reserves. Clause 32 will enable regular personnel at warrant officer level or equivalent, and below, to seamlessly transfer into the Volunteer Reserve, and vice versa, without having to leave one force and rejoin the other. Clauses 33 to 37 amend the Reserve Forces Act 1996 in relation to call-out and recall liability, ensuring that it is fit for purpose. This will help ensure that defence has access to more people with the right skills and experience it needs at times of need. It will harmonise liability across the services, widen the pool from which we can draw resources, and allow us greater access to both our Volunteer Reserve and Strategic Reserve pool. It is good to see the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster—who heads up the reserves—in his place. I know how hard he has been working, as many other noble Lords have been, with respect to this.

Just to digress slightly, I know that many noble Lords across the Chamber are particularly concerned about resilience and homeland defence and all those sorts of things. I look forward to the debate in Committee on that aspect, as we move forward on how we make the best use of our reserves around all of that.

Clauses 33 to 37 will make it easier to mobilise personnel earlier ahead of the outbreak of any war and increase the maximum age—from 55 to 65—at which reserves can be recalled. I welcome that increase. There are many people who would be eligible for this who are 64 and they would be brilliant doctors, brilliant accountants, brilliant cyber analysts—brilliant in many ways that would be of interest. I am aware of some of the initial reporting when that announcement was made, but if you look at it in that light, you can see the significance of the contribution that many older reservists could make to the defence and security of our country. Looking at it from that perspective, one understands the importance of and the reasons for raising that age limit. I just wanted to reiterate that important point at the start of our discussions on the Bill. These measures align with the direction provided by the strategic defence review to allow for a whole-defence approach, to re-energise the relationship with the Strategic Reserve and, as I say, increase our readiness for war or potential conflicts.

Beyond these four main pillars, the Bill contains other important measures that cover such areas as protecting the defence estate from drone activities—again, something that I know has been of particular concern to many noble Lords—providing increased protections for military shipwrecks, and extending cross-border powers for the Ministry of Defence Police.

This Armed Forces Bill makes important and positive changes for the Armed Forces, their families and the wider defence community. I look forward to the detailed scrutiny the Bill will be given in Committee, and the challenge that there will be to some aspects of it, while noting the general support there was in the other place and that there is—as I know from conversations I have had—in this place. Such challenge and scrutiny can only improve the Armed Forces Bill and make it a Bill of which our Armed Forces and defence community can be proud—which is indeed what we all want. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for winding up the debate and noble Members from across the House for their contributions. I am really pleased—as I think the Opposition Chief Whip heard me say—that everyone is in favour of the Bill. I would hate to be answering on a Bill that everyone opposed; I would be in serious trouble answering all their questions, challenges and gaps, so I start by saying that I am so pleased that everyone is in favour of the Bill. Somebody outside the Chamber used the term non-controversial, but I will not use that phrase as it was made outside the Chamber.

That said, noble Members from across the House have made some serious points about how a Bill that they support could be further improved. I accept that and the challenge for the Government to take it forward. As I said in my introductory remarks, we all want the Bill to succeed because we support its aims.

Let me deal with some points. We have had the debate about funding, and I appreciate that the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will continue to make their various points about that. I will make the same points back, and that debate will continue.

However, a number of noble Lords, including the noble Earl, Lord Minto, raised defence housing. I do not often get irritated—and I am not irritated—but I find it slightly strange that a Government who have committed £9 billion of public money over 10 years to improve housing are being taken to task on it. That is all I will say: the Government’s policy is to improve defence housing with £9 billion over 10 years.

Somebody asked whether it applies to single-person housing. With the defence housing service, we are talking about family accommodation. A separate review is going on for single-person accommodation which will report in due course and then the Government will have to respond. That is a very clear answer on that.

The noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, raised the DIO and its relationship with the defence housing service. I will read out this bit of my brief to make sure I get it completely right: “The responsibilities of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation will continue to be provided as part of the National Armaments Director Group within the MoD alongside the new defence housing service, which will assume responsibility for the provision of family housing and the development of surplus defence land in line with the objective set out in new Section 343E(1) inserted by Clause 3 of the Bill. The new defence housing service will continue to work closely with departmental teams, and this will be covered in the framework document between the department and the defence housing service in the usual way”. That seeks to clarify some of the points that the noble Earl, Lord Minto, made in his introductory remarks, and that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and other Members made about the relationship between the DIO and the housing service.

On the ECHR and its application continuing, I think the noble Earl, Lord Minto, made the point that an amendment would seek to change the Government’s wording from “may” to “must”, but all Governments usually argue, and this Government will argue, that they often require flexibility in how they implement various laws. That is something that we would seek to continue.

I thank noble Lords for their interesting ideas about funding for the future. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, also raised the issue of defence bonds. The Government are looking at different ways in which we can finance defence in the future and no doubt that discussion and debate will continue.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, talked about the national conversation. That may change. This is a “stop the press” announcement: responsibilities among the ministerial team may change and I may already have lost the national conversation—not because I have not started it yet, I hasten to add. The serious point is that that national conversation is a priority within the department; the ministerial responsibility for it may well change, but it will be taken forward. I think that is something that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will be particularly pleased about, as will we all.

The noble Lord mentioned cadets, which I will come to later, when I also respond to some of the moving remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Bailey.

Clearly, the national conversation is extremely important, not least around how we support homeland defence. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and other noble Lords also made the point about how we ensure that we get and retain public support for the amount we spend on defence. That is crucial to the way forward.

I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, for his welcome of the extension of the covenant to national bodies and his general support for that. He and the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, raised visas. I cannot answer all the questions, but I will answer some of them. Again, the Government are committed to scrapping visa fees for non-UK veterans who have served our country for four or more years, and their dependants. The MoD has started work with the Home Office to deliver this manifesto commitment, and that commitment on visa fees remains. I know that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, raised that, as well as the issue with the ECHR, and he heard me address that.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

I hope that the intention to proceed with it will be coupled with a date when it will be done.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That is always my intention—rather than to be just aspirational—to try to demand change of the system. The noble and gallant Lord will know from his experience and military service that even a senior rank or senior ministerial rank does not always mean things moving quite as quickly as one would hope. Certainly, this is not an aspiration but a desire to actually bring it about. We will work with other government departments to try to ensure that something happens on that as quickly as possible.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich raised various issues and welcomed the covenant. He heard what I had to say about single-person accommodation and the importance of a whole-society approach. A number of noble Lords mentioned service police and we will come back to some of those issues in Committee.

The noble Baroness, Lady Penn, heard me talk about some of the changes to visas. She mentioned the importance of paternity leave and raised that with me at another meeting outside the Chamber. Of course, we will look at that and see how we can take it forward. I think she mentioned an individual case as well; if she wants to write to me about that, because I do not know the case, I will look into it for her.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich made a really interesting point with respect to not just the Church of England but faith organisations as a whole. The moral dilemma there is between supporting the Armed Forces and appearing to support war versus being a peace-loving faith, which all faiths are. That is a moral dilemma, but sometimes you prevent war by preparing for it. That is the difficulty with respect to that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, made the point about housing; she will have heard what I had to say about that. She made some other points about the need for transition support, learning and training, which were really important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made a number of very important points, which were linked to points made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas. I thought his was a brilliant legal contribution—I actually understood it, which is not always the case—in the way that he laid out some of the issues with respect to the cases that he referred to, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also pointed out. I do not want to say too much, because there are ongoing legal issues with respect to that, but there are certainly discussions taking place about how we take it forward.

Here is the legal advice I have had—and this is for the noble Baroness as well as the noble Lord. The Visiting Forces Act 1952 sets out the legal basis for how jurisdiction for criminal offences is decided between the UK civil authorities and a visiting forces service court martial. This is implemented in practice by the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the UK courts as part of the criminal justice system. Following the deeply distressing recent case, officials are working across government to establish the full facts of how this process was enacted in this case.

If needs be, regarding some of the other things said by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I will make sure that we come back in Committee with answers to the questions she raised, when I have had a full legal response to the things she asked. I thought they were really important, and I will bring them forward and share them—obviously, if I bring them up in Committee, people will see that.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, for the points he raised about the Strategic Reserve, and the point about data and the digitalisation of the system strikes me as one of those important things where it seems we ought to be able, sometimes, to just get on with them.

I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Magan, and we will continue the debate around resources. My only point of contention with him is that I really do not think we have “smashed” our special relationship with the United States. There are ups and downs, and sometimes it is difficult, but the UK-US relationship is of immense importance to our country and continues to be so.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, for the points he made. He will know that we are working hard to ensure that we do all we can to work properly with respect to historic wrecks. I will take the point about divers and come back to him in Committee about how the Bill impacts on that.

I thank my noble friend Lady Carberry for her remarks and the importance she gave to the reserves, not underplaying the role of the Active Reserve, and of employers being on side. I completely agree with that, and we will continue to take that forward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, also made the point about paternity leave, and she will have heard what I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Penn. The noble Baroness and I will continue to have the debate about 16 and 17 year-olds, the young adults—they are not child soldiers. I see it as a really important part of the contribution that the Armed Forces can make to the development of some of our young people, but that is a debate that we will continue to have. I do not know what the maritime war graves committee is looking at, but I will come back to her on that in Committee.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. We may not have delivered exactly what she wants with respect to the covenant but, if she looks at Clause 31, she will see that we have moved on the commissioner having responsibility for RFA personnel. She will know, given the continued remarks that she has made over a number of years around the importance of the RFA, that, although not giving her what she wants with respect to the covenant, the Government have moved on the extension of the role of the commissioner to that, which shows that contributions from all sides of the Chamber can actually make a difference to government policy.

I have said what I have said to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas. The noble Lord, Lord Morse, made the point about housing which, again, is really important.

My noble friend Lady Dacres made a good contribution. The consistency of delivery around the covenant across the country is really important, and she is quite right to make that point. I would say that one of the successes of the introduction of the covenant has been that it has changed attitudes and culture, which often does not require legislation. I think that the Armed Forces covenant has forced local authorities—and will soon do so for national government, although it has probably changed national government behaviour by its very introduction—to change the way in which people operate and the way people interact with our Armed Forces and veterans. I think it has made a difference there, and I say to my noble friend that that is how we see it taking place across the country.

With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Hay, discussions continue on the Troubles Bill and Northern Ireland and the proper place for our veterans and respecting them.

The noble Lord, Lord Bailey, made a hugely moving speech about his own experience and the way in which cadets work. We all support cadets. There are significant sums of money going into cadets, and we wish to expand on that. The noble Lord made an important point about how we attract more volunteers to support that. He will know there are tens of thousands of cadets across the country. This is a point I often make: you see them at events such as Remembrance Sunday but also many others, including Armed Forces Day, which we had recently. The role of cadets in those events, nationwide, was a great tribute to their organisations and a symbol of the sort of society we want in the way in which cadets can bring people together. I thank the noble Lord again for the contribution he made, from his own personal experience, on the way that cadets can help people who may need help and also help those who are simply young people growing up. I think that that is important.

May I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, on his work as a graduate of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme?

[Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. He will know Northern Ireland extremely well, and he will know that there are at least five councils of Northern Ireland that do not implement the covenant. What do you have when your veterans lose out? You end up with a two-tier system where, across the rest of the United Kingdom, the covenant is very much rolled out. There is an opportunity in the Bill to try to address that issue, so it is not the responsibility of a local government to implement the covenant.

This issue has been going on for some time. I could name the councils involved, but, when you have five councils out of 11, you are in a situation where you have almost half of Northern Ireland not implementing the covenant and veterans losing out, when the rest of the United Kingdom and the veterans benefit from the covenant. So I ask the Minister: is there a way, within the Bill, of addressing the issue around Northern Ireland and the covenant?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Lord explained some of that in his question. There is a particular situation, as he will know, with respect to Northern Ireland and the application of the covenant to all bodies there. As he will know, the duty applying to local authorities does not apply, and that becomes a problem, but we expect the covenant to apply to Northern Ireland through what the UK Government do. It is an ambiguity and it is difficult, but we will always seek to apply the covenant where we can, where it is appropriate, and where it fits the various devolution settlements with respect to that.

The covenant supports the Armed Forces community in Northern Ireland. Borough districts and city councils in Northern Ireland do not generally exercise functions in the policy areas in scope of the covenant legal duty. This does not exclude councils in Northern Ireland from pledging their support for the Armed Forces community by becoming a covenant signatory. I think that is what the noble Lord referred to. Some councils will choose to do so and others will not. That is the situation as it stands.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

The Minister must recognise that if this goes through without any recognition that Northern Ireland is again being treated differently, it really is not good enough. Surely, they are the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the covenant is so important to all those people who have served in Northern Ireland and who live there.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will know from my record that the Government support the Armed Forces community in Northern Ireland completely. I went to Armed Forces Day in Northern Ireland last year, a government Minister went to Northern Ireland just a couple of weeks ago to support Armed Forces Day, and I have been asked to an event in Northern Ireland in a few weeks’ time, which I hope to go to.

Support for Northern Ireland’s Armed Forces community with respect to the aims of the covenant are clear. We seek to recognise the reality that is there. Councils can pledge themselves to the covenant if they wish. A number have done so, but some have chosen not to. I reiterate the Government’s support for the Armed Forces community in Northern Ireland.

I turn now to a couple of remarks the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, made. On the covenant, as I said, it is the bite of the “due regard” that makes a difference. We saw, when it was introduced by the last Government, that “due regard” has impact as it seeks to bite. Cultural change will cause the councils—as they were then; they are now national bodies—to start to do things that they would not otherwise have done.

It is good that drones are in the Bill. They start to plug a gap. There will be questions about how we deal with that.

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Goldie, for their remarks. There are many questions that we will have to come back to.

I finish by saying that I welcome the general support for the Bill. I also welcome the various challenges and questions that have been posed. We will seek to address those and move forward in a constructive way. If there can be improvements and adaptations, and the Government agree with them, we will see whether we can find a way forward.

Bill read a second time.

Moved by

[Lord Coaker]

That the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they consider the bill in the following order: Clauses 1 to 3, Schedule 1, Clauses 4 and 5, Schedule 2, Clauses 6 and 7, Schedule 3, Clauses 8 to 31, Schedule 4, Clauses 32 to 36, Schedule 5, Clauses 37 and 38, Schedule 6, Clauses 39 to 46, Schedule 7, Clauses 47 to 56, Title.

Motion agreed.