Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support the Bill. The reason that I am standing here talking is partly thanks to the Minister. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was the person who suggested that I should immediately go and take part in the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme when I sent him an email about it. For the last two years, I have had the privilege of graduating in the Army scheme and then the Navy scheme. Just over a year ago, I was with the Royal Marines in the Arctic, which is extremely relevant and useful training for the temperature in the Chamber this evening.

The second reason is because of the late and much-lamented Baroness Massey of Darwen. The Minister may remember, because he was speaking for the Opposition, a Bill when we talked about the Army Foundation College in Harrogate. I suspect that is what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, was referring to. The Army Foundation College is a good example of an issue that is systemic and thematic; some of the recent cases, over the last 10 years, are pretty harrowing. They have continued for a long time and will continue into the future until and unless someone such as the new Armed Forces commissioner grabs hold of it and does something about it.

The German model that we are following is a good one, but it has been around for a long time. For reasons that I think we can all understand, it was set up in 1959 in the wake of the devastation created by the German armed forces and the need to completely rebuild them from the bottom up. By contrast, today we are talking about the third iteration of us trying to find something similar to what the Germans have. We started this only in 2008, so we are rather late to the party. I think we are playing catch-up. The evidence is in the key recommendations of the German armed forces commissioner in her last report. The areas that she focused on were personnel shortages and operational readiness; ageing equipment; recruitment and retention; bureaucratic challenges; and mental health and welfare.

Those areas are an interesting contrast with the last report of our current commissioner, because the German ones were to some extent looking at the problems of today, but in looking at issues such as personnel shortages, operational readiness and ageing equipment, they were actually looking to the future. Look, by contrast, at what the last commissioner here said in 2022: it was about the system. It was about efficiency and fairness, resolution time, system improvements and performance metrics. Lastly, it was about bullying, harassment and discrimination.

A lot of the effort of the current commissioner has been simply to get the system working because it is not working. The Germans have a system—as one might expect—that does work, but they have about 70 years on us in terms of getting it going. We need to effect change quickly.

In visiting the Army and the Navy in the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, one is very impressed, and almost overwhelmed, by the range of regimental silver, flags, plaques and paintings. I have never had so many photos taken of me in my life. There is an understandable fierce pride in the past, but I sometimes wonder whether the pride in the past and the retelling of the great stories of the past in some ways stop us thinking as much as we should about the future. That is a cultural issue which the Armed Forces need to deal with.

I have a series of questions for the Minister which I do not expect him to be able to answer, brilliant though he is. First, because we are in catch-up mode—other noble Lords referred to this—will the funding and the staffing be adequate for the scale of the task, given how much the current commissioner is focusing on getting the system working, let alone dealing with the complaints coming in? The Germans have 60 staff, the current commissioner here has 26. We may initially, for a two- or three-year period, need significantly more than that simply to get traction and to get the basics right.

Leadership is key. I know the commissioner cannot be a regular, a reserve or a civil servant. If you look at the example of the German commissioner, she is a lawyer, and she was for 11 years a Bundestag deputy—a very senior one. When she was appointed, immediately after she stepped down from being a deputy, elected by a large majority of the Bundestag, she was able to hit the ground running. She has strong relationships and knowledge within the parliament, which have been enormously helpful. I hope that will be taken into account when thought is given to the type of person we are looking for: we need somebody who really knows what they are doing.

The Armed Forces, like many an institution with more history than is good for it, can be quite defensive culturally—for completely understandable reasons. Might it be possible, or even necessary, for the commissioner to have ex-members of the Armed Forces as his or her staff, or even that one could appoint people on secondment into the office, denoting that you are high potential, that you are going places, and that spending a period in the commissioner’s office is a big plus and is an important part of your development?

Next, given the issues around bullying, harassment, discrimination, violence against women and girls, and mental health, it is unreasonable to expect that the commissioner will have the right level of expertise and experience to deal with these issues in-house. We mentioned this and discussed this in the very helpful briefing the Minister gave last week. I appeal to the Ministry of Defence to think about the commissioner developing relationships with a variety of organisations that have this expertise, so that they can access it very quickly as and when they need it, rather than thinking when something comes up, “Oh, where do I go for help?”

Lastly, on the issue of entry to premises, it is crystal clear that the German armed forces commissioner has carte blanche to go wherever in the world she wishes with no advance notice whatever being given to the armed forces; such is the level of trust, that works. Could we not do the same here?