Lord Stirrup
Main Page: Lord Stirrup (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Stirrup's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
I thank my noble friend for his questions. It is the intention that the pupil premium for service children in state schools will cover the whole of the UK so it is broader than the pupil premium. I will have to write to my noble friend regarding how schools will bid for this.
I was looking through these different publications earlier and saw in one of them a chapter on the Armed Forces’ help for the Olympics. I will have a word with the noble Lord afterwards and point it out to him.
Lord Stirrup
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, which has much in it to be welcomed. However, is not a key point of enshrining a requirement in law that there should be a remedy if the requirement is not met? In this case, the remedy seems to be that Ministers will have to explain themselves in Parliament. However, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, pointed out, many issues that have caused such problems for our service families over the years are outwith the control of the Ministry of Defence. I refer, for example, to their inability to get access to dental services, to their having no choice of schooling for their children, and to their losing their place on NHS waiting lists when they move with their spouses. Given that fact, and accepting that devolved authorities are a different and difficult case to which we may wish to return, and given the particular nature of the remedy in this case, will the Minister say whether the Secretaries of State for the relevant departments—for example, health and education—will be held to account in Parliament at the time of the annual report, rather than just the Secretary of State for Defence?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his question. I very much hope that they will be held to account when the annual report comes out. This will cover deficiencies in any of the departments, so I hope that they will be named and shamed.