Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Virginia Crosbie

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con) [V]]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate, particularly on Reserves Day and ahead of celebrating Armed Forces Day on Saturday. It is a pleasure to follow so many excellent speeches, particularly that by my Welsh colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones).

The passage of the Bill through Parliament this year is particularly important because it will put the armed forces covenant into legislation. Of course, the covenant is not new, but has been in operation in its current form for nearly 10 years. During that time, significant progress has been made to improve the lives of armed forces personnel, veterans and their families. More than 6,000 organisations and every local authority in the UK has pledged to support it.

However, the covenant is still just a pledge and individual members of the armed forces community still suffer disadvantage when accessing public services. This is often because of a lack of awareness of not just the covenant but the unique contributions that our service personnel make. The Bill will impose a legal duty on relevant bodies to have due regard to the three principles of the covenant. This is our promise to those who are serving or have served: they and their families will be treated fairly.

I come from a service family—my grandparents met in the RAF. I have RAF Valley in my constituency, and I am proud to be on the RAF section of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I understand that going into the armed forces is a unique career choice. People hand themselves and their family over to the service of their country, with all that that entails.

I am fortunate to work closely with RAF Valley. Group Captain Andy Turk’s whole force team at the base is a very close-knit and supportive community, and I hold regular meetings with the service personnel and the private sector organisations based there, including Babcock, BAE Systems and Affinity. I represent both civilian and service constituents and their concerns are my concerns. RAF Valley is one of the largest employers here on Ynys Môn and I am consistently pushing very strongly, both informally and formally, how important these skilled jobs are in my constituency. Indeed, I had a meeting today with the Minister for Defence Procurement, which included an invitation to visit RAF Valley over the summer.

What strikes me most about the whole force team at RAF Valley is not what they do for the country, but what they do quietly in the background for the local community. Yes, training our future fighter and helicopter pilots is what we shout about, but it is their commitment to Anglesey that makes them truly part of our island. The station is as much part of Anglesey life as Anglesey life is part of the station, so my message today is this: when people think of the armed forces covenant, they should not think only of the contribution that our forces make to our national security; they should remember also the huge contribution that they make to our everyday life.

With RAF Valley here on Anglesey, the community enjoys so many benefits. The team helped us to secure hosting of the 40th anniversary of the Island games. They have provided critical skilled volunteers for our Royal National Lifeboat Institution, mountain rescue and local first responder groups. They host award-winning youth outreach programmes such as the Jon Egging Trust, support the learning and mentoring Profi project and partner with Careers Wales and STEM Cymru projects. They provide local junior football and tennis camps, on-site science, technology, engineering and maths activities and events for local schools. Padre Michael Hall of the station charities committee raises vital funds for a range of north Wales charities and organises a Santa drop for the children staying in Ysbyty Gwynedd Hospital over Christmas. They run beach cleans, they are custodians of a stretch of our beautiful coastal path, and they do so much more.

The armed forces covenant is our country’s thank you. It is a thank you for all that our armed forces do, and I take this opportunity to say personally diolch yn fawr—thank you—to RAF Valley for all that it does. I am proud that this Government are enshrining the armed forces covenant in legislation, so that our services personnel and their families receive the recognition that they deserve for their courage and years of commitment to us.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP) [V]]

First, let me put on record that my thoughts are with the crew of HMS Defender as they go about their job with the usual dedication and skill today. Let me also say that despite what certain news agencies may have said today, Crimea is in Ukraine, and all on the Scottish National party Benches hope that the Russian Federation ends that illegal occupation as quickly as possible.

Today’s reminder that those members of our armed forces do a job like no other is pertinent and the opportunity that we in this House have through this legislation is a solemn duty, which I do not doubt all who are speaking today approach with the requisite seriousness. That does not mean, however, that we all share the same optimism about the Bill. While the idea of bringing the armed forces covenant into law is a welcome step forward, I still feel that there is going to be little in the Bill that will be genuinely transformative for the lived experience of armed forces personnel and veterans.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and constituency neighbour has already spoken about her amendment on armed forces housing and I will not add much to that, other than to say that it is the type of small change that could make a real difference to the home lives of personnel wherever they are on these islands. More substantively, it is an amendment that makes an important point about how we should see the armed forces personnel not as a special class or caste of a group of our societies that seeks to defend that societies’ values. They cannot do this in substandard housing. The very least we should offer them is that which is available to the rest of society and, in this case, make sure that they are housed safely and warmly. I am determined to say every time these sorts of debates come up that those of us here would do well to think of our serving personnel less as heroes, and more as human beings, with the same needs as the rest of us: fair pay and conditions, the right to private and family life and ready access to secure accommodation. That is taken for granted for every other type of public sector employee, so why is it not for armed forces personnel? In fact, come to think of it, despite being to the best of my knowledge the only group of public sector employees to have a dedicated legislative session every five years, armed forces personnel have demonstrably poorer outcomes on almost every scale. How can that be?

There may be a metaphor in here. We are told that the Armed Forces Bill meets by convention as a Committee of the whole House before Report and Third Reading. Given that the Bill Select Committee was rushed through in a few short weeks, I cannot understand why we are now inserting another stage or, indeed, why the amendments that the Government are bringing today could not have been brought to the Select Committee.

I note with particular puzzlement yesterday’s statement from the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty). He is a fellow Docherty, with roots in Donegal and Glasgow and with whom I enjoyed working on the Defence Committee. He stated that further scrutiny would

“delay the Bill’s passage, placing undue pressure on the deadline to renew the Armed Forces Act 2006.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2021; Vol. 697, c. 27WS.]

I would certainly like to think that the next time an armed forces Bill whizzes through the House, we get a wee bit more time to discuss the really important issues at hand.

As the arcane workings of this place continue to baffle both Members and personnel alike, we avoid being able to discuss the type of wide-ranging changes that could make a real difference to the lives of personnel, although that is probably the way that the Government and the Ministry of Defence like it. Maybe I am just being cynical.

My final points are in regard to the Opposition amendments relating to the service justice system, which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) will be supporting. From my work on the Defence Committee, it is clear that the service justice system needs a radical and profound overhaul, and not just the modest changes proposed in the amendment. With the next armed forces Bill, it is time that we think about bringing together all the service police forces, streamlining the processes and ensuring a more robust service justice system that works for all.

I conclude by thanking all my colleagues on the Bill Select Committee for their work over the past few months —especially the Chair, the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), because I know it is the first time that a Bill has been considered in a hybrid way—and the Clerks and those in the Public Bill Office who have helped us navigate this legislation. We owe it to service personnel, in whose name the Bill will be enacted, to make it more straightforward in the future.