Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lyn Brown and Lord Robathan

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

I do not regret the process at all. What has happened—I would have thought that the hon. Lady had spotted this, because she is a capable person—is that we have been discussing and listening to things and came to the view that we might enhance the Bill, which is what we have done.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Chaos.

[Mr Robathan]

Contrary to what the hon. Lady says from a sedentary position—perhaps she is reading what is on her BlackBerry—it is not chaos.

Those other organisations are as concerned as the Government are to avoid the pitfalls of the covenant ending up in the courts. They have also pointed out where they think we can do better, and we have listened to them. They argued persuasively that the language of the Bill that related to the armed forces covenant report did not go far enough in explaining our intentions. Our amendments aim to put that right, and I hope that everybody in the Chamber welcomes that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robathan]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the “forward thing”, but we have to do the sums, and I am afraid his maths is obviously not very good. If he does not believe that the Ministry of Defence is short of money, he is wrong.

The Opposition’s amendment 16 represents a further attempt to reduce the discretion of the Secretary of State to consider which subjects to include when preparing his annual report. I have three difficulties with it, and they lead me to oppose it. [Interruption.] I can find more, if the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) would like.

[Lyn Brown]

I look forward to it.

[Mr Robathan]

Well, one is that the amendment, no doubt with the best of intentions, describes in more detail the subjects to be covered in the covenant report. As drafted, clause 2 requires the Secretary of State to address accommodation, health care, including mental health care, and education. We have included those topics because it is pretty inconceivable that there would ever be circumstances in which they were not relevant. However, the list is meant to be illustrative, not comprehensive. Any attempt to be comprehensive in the clause would run the risk of missing out something significant, and it would be doomed to become out of date as circumstances change. All the topics listed in the amendment are important and deserve consideration by Parliament, yet the list leaves out many other important matters such as pay, recognition and how we treat personnel on deployed operations.

That leads to the second difficulty with amendment 16. Its supporters may argue that if they fail to make their list comprehensive, the gaps will be filled in by others, hence the reference to

“such other fields as the External Reference Group may determine.”

I am a great admirer of the work of the external reference group, as I have made clear to the House on numerous occasions. By coincidence—[Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State obviously does not want to hear my response to his colleague the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire, who has raised a great deal that needs to be covered in the debate. That is why we have a Committee stage in the House of Commons.