Armed Forces Bill

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, I support these amendments, in particular Amendment 4, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. I have special reasons for doing so. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, said that, when he was in office, it took a long time to persuade local councils and devolved powers to agree to implement the covenant. I dispute the fact that he got them all to agree; I come from Northern Ireland and there is a particular problem there. For that reason, Amendment 4 is even more important.

In Northern Ireland, the devolved Government and many of the councils do not support the covenant. Therefore, where do we go for support? The only place we can go, without, if you like, disfranchising our veterans, is to a Secretary of State. I am sure the Minister will say that this amendment comes in the part of the Bill that affects England and that it therefore does not affect the other nations and cannot stand on its own. However, it would take just a stroke of a pen to add this for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland issue is colossal. We do not have more veterans than anywhere else but, because of our Troubles and the local security forces, we have an awful lot more in relation to our size. Of course, we have veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well. The number is significant, and these people have nobody at all to be their champion as far as the covenant goes.

At the moment—one does not need to go into the detail—the covenant is actually being administered quite well at a different level, below the radar, and we do not want to bring that up as a subject. However, on the idea of having a final place or person that people can go to, I support Amendment 4 because it brings a Secretary of State into this. It should therefore be written throughout that the Secretaries of State in the devolved areas have responsibility for this and are just quietly overseeing it. It is not necessarily a devolved issue and can be retained through the Secretary of State. He would have an influence on our veterans being supported as they should be. I certainly support these amendments.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, I also support Amendment 4. I ask your Lordships to reflect on the origin of the Armed Forces covenant, which we find in the Armed Forces Acts, going back to 2011. It was not a new idea dreamed up by the Government of the day but the beginnings of the codification of something that had existed for quite some time as an informal covenant or agreement between those who serve and the Government who require them to carry out certain operations.

The covenant is effective when the balance between the requirements placed on the Armed Forces community and veterans is itself in balance. In the days and years leading up to 2011, when the Armed Forces covenant went into law, and particularly during the most difficult period when operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were being conducted together, the balance was definitely out of kilter and we were out of balance as far as the informal aspect of the covenant was concerned.

Who could better personify and embody the government side of the balance between the Government who require the Armed Forces to carry out operations and the servicepeople who conduct those operations than the Secretary of State? I fully support Amendment 4. I support the further codification of the covenant and any moves to increase its scope, but particularly the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, which would make the Secretary of State a pinnacle and personification of the Government’s side of the covenant. That is absolutely critical.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I too support Amendments 4 and 17. What brings me to this conviction is a case in which the widows of four soldiers from the Royal Marines were asked to leave their houses within three months of their deaths. They had nowhere to go. Another soldier who survived the same battle came to see me in Bishopthorpe, together with four other members of the Royal Marines, to say that we had to protest about the way widows were treated. There was talk about the covenant, but it had not yet come through. To raise the profile of this issue, they wanted me to join them in a parachute jump. At my age, this is quite serious business, but I thought that yes, I would join them. We were up there, at 14,500 feet, and, thank God, I survived; there was no real trouble, and I landed properly. Do you know what happened? People who saw this and learned what had been done donated a lot of money, and those four widows were housed in new builds, supported by a landowner who gave them a place to build houses.

That is what the covenant is about in the end: that we should look after anybody who has done their duty for the service of the Crown and the nation. The Bill is right to require local authorities and other places to have due regard to the covenant, but I would have thought that the Government should be first in line to have due regard to it, because the Secretary of State is answerable to Parliament, unlike local authorities. We could have some junior Minister reporting on what is happening and what is not happening, but the issue of democracy at the heart of this is that members of the Government are answerable to Parliament and can therefore be asked questions. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, is right to include the Secretary of State in Amendments 4 and 17. If they were agreed, the covenant would no longer be given to people of good will to try to do whatever they want—the Government would actually be answerable, and we could ask them questions.

This amendment is timely. I hope we will all support it and that the Government will see it as an improvement, not an attempt to create more jobs and work for the Secretary of State. In the end, our soldiers ultimately look to them for a voice, for help and for support.

I did that parachute jump and was very glad to see the covenant a few years later, but it still did not quite do what this amendment is trying to do. I say to the Government: do not come back to this again—include the Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 26, in the name of my noble friend Lord Coaker. We have retabled this amendment from Committee due to the strength of feeling on this issue across the House. Commonwealth service personnel and other non-UK personnel have contributed an enormous amount to our national defence, and we owe them a debt of gratitude.

Extortionate visa fees have left non-UK veterans facing financial ruin and feeling abandoned by the country they served with courage and distinction. I was shocked when the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, said in Committee that Hong Kong veterans feel that

“they are being treated as aliens, not veterans of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.”

I remember how the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said that the welcome approach to former Afghan staff means that government policy towards

“foreign and Commonwealth soldiers who have stood shoulder to shoulder with us and fought in many campaigns … is an anomaly and it is bizarre.”

I also remember how the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, said that the MoD policy change that now allows Gurkhas to apply some 18 weeks before leaving service

“does not address the issue of cost”.

The Minister stated:

“We recognise that settlement fees place a financial burden on non-UK serving personnel wishing to remain in the UK after their discharge”.


So why is action on this issue so slow? I am grateful that the Minister told the House that 6,398 responses were received in the Government’s consultation, but we are still not further forward when the Minister says only that

“the Government will publish their response in due course.”—[Official Report, 2/11/21; cols. GC 337-41.]

This answer is no longer acceptable. We need to know when and how the Government will act, and they should not hide behind the usual ministerial lines to kick the can down the road.

I remind the Minister of the large sums involved. Under current rules, Commonwealth personnel face a fee of £2,389 per person to continue to live in the UK, after having served for at least four years. This means that someone with a partner and two children could face a bill of £10,000 to stay in Britain. I will listen very closely to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

I will make two points, a broader one and a narrower one that is particularly germane to this amendment. My broader point picks up the discussion in your Lordships’ House about the wider duty of care standard, which we debated in the context of the overseas operations Bill, introduced at Second Reading of this Bill and discussed and debated in Committee. I am encouraged by the Minister’s various responses at the various stages of these two Bills. The Ministry of Defence appears to be going very much in the right direction, which is why an amendment requiring the Secretary of State to put in place a duty of care standard has not featured on Report of this Bill.

My narrower point still relates to duty of care and duty of care standards, with particular regard to former service men and women who served in Hong Kong, Gurkhas, and foreign and Commonwealth individuals. The latter make up a large proportion of the British Armed Forces today. I come back to the very narrow point I made in Committee: it is an anomaly that among those withdrawn from Afghanistan in Operation Pitting in August were former members of the Afghan national army, who have now been given right of residence in this country and are in a better position than foreign and Commonwealth soldiers, and Gurkha soldiers who have served shoulder to shoulder with us for at least four years, and in many cases for much longer.