Armed Forces Commissioner Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Luke Pollard and David Reed

Committee stage
Thursday 12th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell for her amendment 5. As with amendment 7, it is good to be able to place on the record our intention for how this process should work.

Amendment 5 would insert a requirement for the House of Commons Defence Committee to conduct pre-appointment hearings and to state a positive or negative opinion on the appointment of the Secretary of State’s preferred candidate for commissioner. The Secretary of State would be able to recommend their preferred candidate to His Majesty only following a positive opinion from the Committee.

I draw hon. Members’ attention to the Second Reading debate, during which the Secretary of State confirmed that the Government are keen for the Committee to exercise rigorous pre-appointment scrutiny of candidates to ensure that we appoint the best person to be the independent champion for the armed forces and service families. The hon. Lady’s amendment would certainly set a precedent for wider Government discussion. I suggest that her argument might best be directed in the first instance to the Cabinet Office, given its cross-Government leanings, rather than to the Ministry of Defence.

The Government have said that the pre-appointment scrutiny by the House of Commons Defence Committee should be vigorous and thorough. We expect it to go above and beyond the current process, precisely because the commissioner will report their recommendations to Parliament via the national security scrub in the MOD, so their role is somewhat different from the role of other commissioners who might receive pre-appointment scrutiny from other Select Committees. Their powers are designed to be greater, so a more prominent role will be given to Parliament. We are confident that the existing practices and arrangements in Parliament are robust, that they can address any concerns that the Select Committee may have about a candidate, and that we will be able to take the Committee’s views fully into account before making a recommendation to His Majesty.

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

The mechanics are different from those for a preferred candidate in other Departments, in so far as the candidate will have to go through top-level security clearance and presumably enhanced developed vetting. If they do not pass enhanced developed vetting, will they still be put forward as the preferred candidate? How will the mechanics work?

[Luke Pollard]

The hon. Member asks a fair question. We will not put forward anyone who does not pass security vetting; it is important that we place that on the record. This is a significant and prominent role. The commissioner will have access to our military bases. We do not expect, require or want them to look at anything beyond general service welfare matters, but there may be locations or people adjacent to those welfare matters that are sensitive to UK national security. That is why we have put national security powers in the Bill and why the Secretary of State has made assurances, which I am happy to repeat, that the commissioner will be security vetted. That is what service personnel and our colleagues across Government will expect. Someone who cannot pass security vetting should not be able to take up such a serious appointment in the Ministry of Defence. I am happy to give the hon. Member that assurance; I hope it reassures him.

In his short few months here, my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar has established himself as formidable and forensic in his tabling of parliamentary questions to the Ministry of Defence.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Reed]

I seek clarification on one of the points the Minister made about clearances, as I have not heard it in what he has said. Which level of clearance will the Armed Forces Commissioner be required to hold, and will the role be contingent on them holding it? If they cannot maintain clearance, will they lose their job?

[Luke Pollard]

I am happy to write to the hon. Member with our expectation of which specific clearance type would be required, but on the second part of his question about what happens if someone loses their clearance, it will be a condition of the role that they would be subject to the Official Secrets Act 1989 and require the necessary clearance, and in such circumstances they would not be fulfilling the terms and conditions of their role. I hope that gives the hon. Member suitable assurance.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule 1 accordingly agreed to.

Clause 2

Commissioner’s functions in relation to service complaints

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Luke Pollard and David Reed

Committee stage
Thursday 12th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

Would it be possible for the Minister to provide clarification on how sensitive information will be handled? I imagine that, with these extra powers, the new commissioner will be able to take both physical and digital sensitive information. Does that indicate that there will be a need for a new secure physical facility to allow those documents to be stored and a new digital network to allow those digital files to be handled?

[Luke Pollard]

I commend the hon. Gentleman, who is clearly using his previous experience in the military to carefully scrutinise how this provision will work in practice. I am very happy to write to him about that. It would be set out in the implementation work that the Ministry of Defence is doing at the moment. However, we have a foundation in the work of the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces, which already handles much of that sensitive information, especially in cases relating to personnel and their issues, and I imagine that that work will carry on. The Armed Forces Commissioner is also subject to the Official Secrets Act, the Data Protection Act 2018 and a whole array of other legislation that seeks to ensure the proper security of information. I am happy to follow up with the hon. Gentleman on the detail of all that.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Luke Pollard and David Reed

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard)]

Q Thank you all for all the work that you and your organisations do. One of the bits about this Bill that is a development of where we are currently is the ability for the commissioner to undertake thematic investigations into issues affecting the welfare of our people and their families.

Could you give us a flavour of the issues coming forward in the cohort that we are talking about in the Bill to your organisations and how you think shining a spotlight on some of those structural issues might be able to address some of the underlying causes? The purpose of the commissioner is, ideally, to assist in removing some of the barriers, obstacles and challenges that our service people and their families face. I would be interested to get your sense as to whether those structural issues have always been here or whether you have seen changes in recent years that need to be addressed by the commissioner.

Col. Darren Doherty: I would start by saying that much of our work is currently done and our support is currently provided to the veteran and family community. Only about 12% of our grants go to the serving community. That is because we base them on need and, thankfully, many in the serving community do not feel that need until they have left. Of that 12%, much is made up of family support in terms of bereavement and those sorts of things.

I think the situation is changing. In the future, I think we are going to look much more towards causation and prevention, which will be more within the serving community. I would highlight a project that we have recently become involved with, which is funding a training and education mechanism that will look at domestic abuse. That is not just treating or helping to support the victims of domestic abuse through a helpline, although that is part of it. The main part, through a charity called SafeLives, is looking at training and education. Much of that is aimed towards our serving community, through their own welfare officers. That initiative was prompted by the work of our trustees identifying that they thought this might be an issue. We cross-checked that with the Army and they believed it was.

That is an example where a thematic study carried out, or a report by the commissioner, could help identify other areas of need in the serving community where the third sector and in the Army’s case, the Army Benevolent Fund, could intervene and try to get at some of the root causes of these issues. That is where we intend to go in the future, while still providing the same degree of support to meet the need that we do now.

Mandy Harding: We are a commissioning charity in the sense that our grant-making uses commissioning principles based on need. We commission through grants to partners to deliver the outcomes. We do that by identifying need. We are very interested in needs, and any identified needs, because where we can identify the need, that is where we can appropriate the right resources and the right investment. From our point of view, anything that helps with that is very useful.

In terms of what is coming up, we have just commissioned some new work around mental health and wellbeing because of the changes we are seeing. Deployments now are to hostile areas, families have less information and the anxiety is harder for them. You cannot shield children so easily from social media and the news. Families have explained to us that they have tried to shield their children from the news in the home, but that changes the moment they go to school—I think HMS Diamond was probably a very good example of what happened, and the distress that those families felt at seeing that on the news and trying to shield their children from what was going on. There is a change and a shift.

From our charity’s position, we are currently looking at need again. We did a piece of need research of our own in 2019. Professor Walker’s work came in, which was incredibly helpful. With colleagues at Greenwich Hospital and at the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, we are all looking at need. We are working with the RAF and with the RAND research project to try to see what need is there. If a commissioner came in, it follows that we would be supportive of a commissioner who might be able to pull themes together for us, and then we can make the appropriate investments.

The only thought that I would offer from our experience of working with beneficiaries and organisations—particularly when I have done research into need and talked with beneficiaries—is to manage expectations. I think managing families’ expectations of this will be a challenge.

Air Commodore Simon Harper: I just have a few points to add. From a Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund perspective, we augment what the service already provides. Much of what we see in the serving community in particular is what the air force has asked us to provide or, indeed, where we have found a specific need that is not being provided for either by the Royal Air Force locally on station or by partner charities.

I would pick up two areas in which we have seen an increase or growth over the last couple of years. The first is in emotional wellbeing support and sub-clinical mental wellbeing. We have a listening and counselling service that is accessed by over 2,000 people a year, of whom 80% are from the serving community. It was originally set up as a veterans’ programme, and it is now dominated by the serving community.

The second area is around children and young people. Increasingly, we have picked up a requirement to support children and young people, not just through after-school clubs or our youth club provision on stations, but through holiday provision as well. Increasingly, we are seeing the need to support serving children. Particularly where both parents are serving—that is increasing—we have picked that up as a requirement, and colleagues from the Royal Air Force Families Federation will be able to help with that.

As far as addressing underlying causes and needs goes, if the commissioner can be part of that solution, as I mentioned earlier, that would be fantastic. Already, it is a multifaceted response, but if the commissioner can come and say, “Here is an issue. This is what we have picked up. Is it being picked up by any other organisations?”—that includes, by the way, local authorities, the NHS and local education authorities—I think that would be of huge benefit.

[David Reed]

Q I echo the thanks for all you do for your single services. This Bill proposes a lot of new powers for an Armed Forces Commissioner. If, down the line, after this commissioner comes in, you take umbrage at how they are conducting themselves, is there a clear line of escalation in the Bill through which you would be able to provide a complaint—either to the MOD or directly to Ministers?

Col. Darren Doherty: I do not know.

Mandy Harding: I am firmly in grants, so I am not the right person to answer that question, I am afraid.

Air Commodore Simon Harper: From what I have seen, it is not clear how that would happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luke Pollard and David Reed

Monday 14th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

GCAP is an important programme, and there will be further updates in relation to it as the SDR reports in the first half of next year. In the meantime, we continue to progress the project; indeed, work is continuing across a range of necessary and important defence projects, because we do not want the SDR to be an excuse to slow down progress. At a time when our troops and allies are operating in difficult and contested environments, we need to ensure that we invest in the kit that we need. That is what the SDR will set out: the future shape of the UK armed forces.

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

11. What plans he has for future levels of spending on defence research and development.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard)]

Defence R&D is critical to maximising the operational advantage of our armed forces. In an increasingly volatile and technology-driven world, the Department remains committed to investing in cutting-edge science, technology and innovation. Just after my appointment to the Department, I was delighted to visit the commando training centre in the hon. Member’s constituency to see the innovative training and capabilities of the future commando force.

[David Reed]

Frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence are already shaping every domain across the modern battlefield. To stay ahead of our adversaries and keep our service personnel and allies safe, it is imperative that we have the domestic ability to develop these technologies. As supercomputing is essential for the development of advanced AI systems, it was disappointing to see the Labour Government pull the plug on the University of Edinburgh’s £800 million exascale supercomputing project. From listening to the Secretary of State and his team, I know that they understand the need to invest in AI for defence, so will the Minister please inform the House how the Department intends to create these technologies when his party’s demand signal to academia and industry appears to be wavering?

[Luke Pollard]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the House. As a fellow Devon MP, I believe it is important that we have a strong voice on defence, so I am grateful for his question. The new Government have been very clear that we see AI playing a really important role not just in defence, but across a whole range of technologies. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology is leading on much of that work in his Department. AI and related technologies are being looked at in relation to the strategic defence review, where we need not only to upscale the innovative work that is already being done by UK technologies, but to provide the skills and the supply chain to ensure that we can continue to deliver, learning the lessons from what we are seeing in Ukraine, in particular.