Armed Forces Bill (First sitting)

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Select Committee stage
Tuesday 24th March 2026 Public Bill Committees

[David Reed]

I would rather have it in the legislation from the outset. We could take a position where we hope that local authorities will sit down and read through the legislation but, as we have seen over the last few years, that has not been applied in the current understanding of the covenant. I would rather the definition be explicit for local authorities. That would also provide a nice feedback loop, because if it is not working, it can go straight back to the Ministry of Defence and we can work on making amendments to the overall legislation.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

When coming to a definition that everybody can agree on, it often ends up being very narrow, because that is what the group can agree on and apply. Does the hon. Member agree that if we end up defining due regard in the Bill, the definition will be narrow and, by its very nature, bodies will apply it in a very narrow sense in practice, to the detriment of veterans and service personnel?

[David Reed]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, and she makes a good point. But who defines “narrow”? From what we have seen with local authorities, most councils want to go above and beyond the covenant, because people in the council might have served in the military or had military families and they want to do more than what is already stated. Having the base, narrow explanation in the Bill will give everyone the base requirement, and it is a powerful thing to include—it is important to be explicit.

The amendment simply ensures that the same level of care is applied, and it is also about accountability. Without that clear definition, it becomes hard to assess whether an authority has fulfilled its duty. A defined standard provides a benchmark against which performance can be measured. It gives confidence to service families and ensures that their circumstances are properly considered; it also gives clarity to authorities about what is expected of them.

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Members from across the House will recognise the importance of the armed forces covenant. It reflects a simple but powerful principle that those who serve, and those who have served, should not be disadvantaged by that service. That special consideration is appropriate in some cases. If we are serious about that principle, we must ensure that the mechanisms we put in place to uphold it are clear and robust.

[Rachel Taylor]

It is a pleasure, Mr Efford, to serve under your chairmanship.

Liberal Democrat amendment 5 is well intentioned, but I find it troubling. The hon. Member for North Devon seems to be trying to create a minimum requirement that organisations might reach and then decide that they will take no further action. I am hugely concerned that it could be detrimental to delivering the best possible service to veterans and service personnel. A one-size-fits-all national protocol removes the ability for decisions to be made at a local level and tailored for local context and circumstances.

[Mike Martin]

Perhaps it would be helpful to explain that it is a floor, rather than a target.

[Rachel Taylor]

I thank the hon. Member for clarifying that, but instead we should push our local authorities and other public bodies to create tailored solutions. For example, I recently asked organisations in my constituency how they are supporting the armed forces covenant, and I was delighted with the response I received. Organisations reached out to explain the specific actions that they have taken, and how they have gone above and beyond to support armed forces personnel, veterans and their families.

Warwickshire police told me that it has achieved gold status in the defence employer recognition scheme, which is managed by the Ministry of Defence. It has developed an armed forces network that has worked hard to develop referral pathways for veterans and their families. We should encourage organisations to aspire to be the best that they can be and to achieve that gold status, rather than enforcing a basic minimum.

[Mr Foster]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, with this amendment, we run the risk of creating a minimal requirement that organisations may seek to meet, without going any further, thus undermining the delivery and service of the covenant for our veterans?

[Rachel Taylor]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and that is exactly the point I am making. We need to encourage the best from all our services, local authorities, police, education, courts and so on. We should not lose the approach of striving for the best, in favour of having a national minimum, because that becomes a drive to the bottom. We need to allow organisations to design their own approach with their local community to do the best they can for the armed forces—veterans and serving personnel—within their communities.

[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.

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[Al Carns]

I disagree—the postcode lottery will get better and start to standardise over time. There is a multitude of problems with the covenant that the Bill will try to solve, one of which is education, and communication to our own armed forces personnel about what it is and what it is not. That is a problem for the Ministry of Defence, which we are taking forward.

A definition of due regard in the Bill risks being overly narrow and could unintentionally limit how bodies apply it in practice. I talked in my letter about flexibility, which is critical. Due regard is about informed decision making. It may involve training staff and putting mechanisms in place to ensure that decision making includes concise analysis of how decisions might impact members of the armed forces community.

[Rachel Taylor]

The Minister has been extremely generous with his time. I want to come back to this definition and whether it will help us, because what the Minister is saying is that we need to educate, inform and work with the champions in local authorities, rather than set up a system that litigates the meaning of “an appropriate amount of weight”. I fail to see how a definition that talks about an appropriate amount of weight is any more helpful for someone interpreting it than the phrase “due regard”, which, from a lot of evidence, is well understood by most of the people delivering on the armed forces covenant.

[Al Carns]

The public sector equality duty has been in force for 15 years and its duty of due regard is working well; we seek to replicate that as we move forward. From my perspective, the amendment risks constraining rather than strengthening that approach. As I have said many times, this is a step in the right direction. It broadens the policy areas covered by the covenant, which is a fantastic step and should be seen very positively across the armed forces, their families, our veteran community and the bereaved.

I thank the hon. Members for North Devon and for Tunbridge Wells for amendment 5, which proposes a statutory requirement for the Secretary of State to

“prepare and publish a national protocol for consistent access to public services”

for personnel and their families. While I recognise the importance of consistent and reliable access to public services for the armed forces community, again I respectfully cannot accept the amendment. A national protocol setting out standardised procedures and expectations could create a minimal level of requirement that organisations might seek to meet without going any further. It therefore risks unintentionally limiting the steps taken by those organisations to support the armed forces.

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[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

It continues to be a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I will confine my remarks to amendment 10, concerning the continuity of NHS secondary care services for the dependants of members of the armed forces. The amendment addresses an issue that has very real consequences for the health and wellbeing of service families, and therefore for the broader integrity of the commitment we make to those who have served and do serve.

At the heart of this amendment lies a simple maxim: those who serve their country, and the families who support them, should not be placed at a disadvantage when accessing essential public services as a result of the demands placed upon them by service life. That principle is, of course, recognised in the armed forces covenant; the question is whether we are giving full and consistent effect to it in practice.

The difficulty arises from a defining feature of military service: members of the armed forces are required to move. They are often asked to move frequently, often at short notice, sometimes across significant distances within the United Kingdom, and sometimes further afield. Those moves are not discretionary; they are intrinsic to the operational readiness and effective functioning of our armed forces. And when service personnel move, invariably their families move with them.

That reality carries with it a number of challenges, but one of the most pressing, and one that is too often overlooked, is the disruption to ongoing medical treatment for their dependants. While primary care is generally able to accommodate patient movement with relative ease, the same cannot be said for secondary care. Hospital treatment, specialist pathways and waiting lists are typically organised on a regional or trust basis. When a family crosses those organisational boundaries, continuity is not guaranteed.

The consequence, in too many cases, is that dependants find themselves required to re-enter the system. A child undergoing specialist treatment, a spouse awaiting elective surgery or a family member under the care of a consultant may be told that because they have moved into a new area, they must obtain a new referral, join a new waiting list and effectively begin the process again from the start.

It is important to be clear about what that represents—not a clinical judgment or a decision taken in the interests of patient care, but an administrative consequence of the way services are structured and commissioned across different parts of the NHS. It is in effect a failure of co-ordination. For the individuals concerned, however, it has a much more significant impact. It can mean delayed diagnoses, prolonged pain, deterioration in conditions that require timely intervention, and significant anxiety for families already managing the pressures of service life. It can also undermine confidence in the system and create a perception, justified or otherwise, that service families are being treated less favourably.

The amendment seeks to address that problem in a proportionate manner. It does not attempt to redesign the structure of the NHS—that would be a fool’s errand—nor does it impose a rigid requirement on how services should be delivered.

[Rachel Taylor]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful argument; we can all relate to the specific problems that anyone faces when they move house, and that is far more likely for service personnel. However, requiring patients to retain waiting list positions regardless of clinical urgency surely risks distorting NHS prioritisation principles, which are based on clinical need in order to ensure fairness and safety. Could he address that point?

[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

The hon. Member makes a valid point. Of course there will need to be a degree of clinical judgment, but the premise that somebody has to start at the bottom of the system by virtue of the fact that they are a dependant of service personnel is inherently unfair, and one that needs to be addressed in the Bill.

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[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is about not only streamlining the process, but giving more heft to those who wield the power to ensure that we get improved patient outcomes at the end of it. That is what we should all be seeking.

Ultimately, the question before us is very straightforward: are we content to allow a situation to persist in which service families can lose their place in the healthcare system simply because they are required to move in the course of service, or do we consider it reasonable to take targeted steps to prevent that outcome? In my view, the answer is clear. Where treatment has begun, it should continue. Where a place on a waiting list has been earned, it should be respected. Administrative boundaries should not dictate clinical outcomes. They certainly should not impose additional burdens on those who have little choice but to cross them.

The amendment provides a measured and practical mechanism to achieve that objective. It respects the structure of the NHS, acknowledges the reality of devolution and focuses squarely on the removal of a specific and identifiable disadvantage. In doing so, it gives tangible effect to the principles of the covenant. It recognises that our obligations to service families are not merely symbolic; they require a practical expression in the design and operation of public services.

[Rachel Taylor]

Although the amendments are well-intentioned, they are somewhat problematic because they target health, education, adoption and fostering, which are all devolved to the respective Governments. They risk recklessly breaching our devolution conventions, including the Sewel convention. The purpose of the Bill is not to strain relationships with the devolved Governments; instead, it seeks to empower them to design the right solutions for each nation.

The covenant duty is intentionally flexible and is supported by guidance and existing frameworks. It allows each Government to design their response. I believe that this Government should seek to work collaboratively with the devolved Governments on supporting our armed forces, rather than prescribing duties to them in legislation.

Furthermore, our NHS already works effectively with the covenant duty to support continuity. The amendments would risk governance and clinical risks. Instead, the Government are focusing on initiatives that aim to promote awareness of the armed forces community.

The Ministry of Defence already provides comprehensive guidance for service families through the adoption and fostering defence instruction notice, which embeds the MOD’s role firmly within existing civilian-led systems. These long-standing frameworks already ensure continuity for families when they move. In combination with the strengthened covenant duty, they will provide a far more practical and effective approach than is proposed in the amendment.

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When I was conducting the “Stick or Twist?” report for Prime Minister Theresa May—I referred to that in some detail on Second Reading, so I shall not go into all that again now—I learned that service personnel sometimes find themselves in a very difficult situation, where they spend one or two years securing an EHCP from their local authority, only to face losing it if they are posted from one garrison to another in a completely different LEA area, and therefore have to start the whole assault course again.

[Rachel Taylor]

The right hon. Member makes a very valid point. I invite him to submit his speech to the consultation on the Government’s White Paper on special educational needs. If he is going to withdraw the amendment, perhaps he would consider that, and then we could move on.

[Mr Francois]

Having been a Member of Parliament for 25 years in June, I have learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I say that in the nicest possible way, so I will take the hint, and having gone to the trouble of writing the speech, I will definitely submit it.

To continue, if a service family were based at Tidworth and, perhaps after some considerable time, had secured an EHCP from Wiltshire as the local education authority, but were then posted to Catterick, they would potentially have to go through the process all over again in Yorkshire. It could be another two years of agony to get back to where they already were before they moved.

As the Minister pointed out in his helpful letter to the Committee of 9 March, the Department for Education has produced—here is that word again—“guidelines” that should help facilitate the passporting, in effect, of EHCPs from one military garrison or equivalent airbase or naval base to another in a different LEA area, so there is already a process in place to do that. The problem, however, is that those guidelines are facilitative rather than mandatory. In other words, if the receiving LEA—in Yorkshire, in our example—was already under serious financial pressure and already had delays in its system for granting EHCPs, it is possible that, despite the armed forces covenant, the receiving LEA might yet be unreasonable and still force the service family to go back to square one and start all over again. Without taking the Committee for granted in any way, I strongly suspect that Members from all parties would find that situation highly undesirable.