Armed Forces Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Mike Martin and Ian Roome

Select Committee stage
Tuesday 24th March 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Ian Roome]

It is nice to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. Amendment 5 would add a new section to the armed forces covenant provisions that were introduced in the Armed Forces Act 2006 to try to make access to services more consistent. This Bill requires specified persons to have due regard to the covenant for specified matters, such as the fair provision of childcare, healthcare and social care, housing and other services listed in clause 2. Some of those specified persons are national bodies, but others are local authorities, educational bodies and health bodies, many of which are much more localised.

Without a national benchmark for supporting armed forces families, we risk that due regard to the covenant will still be interpreted in very different ways by, say, neighbouring local councils. I fear that some might see it just as a paper exercise. That could be unfair on armed forces personnel in some parts of the country, but would make life especially hard for those being reposted every two years. For example, Devon has one, two or three overlapping levels of local government, depending on where someone lives. Our NHS hospital trusts, police, fire authorities and other services have different boundaries too.

The problem of a postcode lottery was identified as a weakness in the original covenant. If someone is in uniform, they could easily be reposted from a big city to RAF Lossiemouth or RNAS Culdrose—a completely different kind of community. The Defence Committee’s report on the armed forces covenant found that some councils have priority housing rules for veterans, while others still require a local connection. That can be unfair on service families who move around a lot.

[Mike Martin]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, since the heart of the covenant is about establishing parity and equity of service provision for all serving personnel and veterans, we must establish exactly what that means as a minimum? Without establishing what services must be provided—as a floor, not a ceiling—how can we have equity across the country?

[Ian Roome]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Published guidance can be interpreted differently from authority to authority. It is about how they put that into action.

Local NHS services have a mad patchwork of transfer rules depending on where someone moves from across the country, which can make access to medical care difficult, as I am sure some of us have experienced—I have, because I have a large garrison in my constituency, and I receive casework from serving personnel about the difference that they have experienced around the country. That is part of what we are trying to fix.

We should expect the Secretary of State to put specific protocols in writing for local bodies across the country. That would be fairer to our service personnel, but it would also make the Government’s responsibilities clearer—it would end our discussion now, where we are asking what due regard means—if local bodies fail to uphold what is being asked for in the Bill. The amendment would require a standardised set of protocols to be produced by the Secretary of State within six months of the Bill passing, require local bodies to act accordingly, and require the protocols to be brought back to Parliament when the procedures need to be revised.