Armed Forces Bill

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab) [V]]

It is an honour to speak in the debate. Many in the House will know that I have a great deal of respect for our armed services personnel, who have put themselves in harm’s way and made the ultimate sacrifice to protect all of us here the UK. We owe them so much. As the Member for Coventry North West, I am proud to have several army reserve centres in my constituency including at Westfield House on Radford Road with the Signal Regiment and the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers to name a few. I am here because I stand behind our armed forces in totality. I recognise their ongoing efforts to make our country safe, and today I want to pay tribute to them in particular for the frontline work they have undertaken to help us during the pandemic.

The Bill is a good start, and I welcome it, but the work is far from over. To truly honour our service personnel, we must build on it. Not to do so would be a disservice to our armed forces personnel, veterans and their families. The armed forces covenant presents a binding moral commitment between the Government and the service community to ensure that men and women and their families get the respect and fair treatment they have earned through their service to our country. It is imperative that the Government deliver on the covenant in full, but the Bill as it stands is a bark without a bite. The Government cannot talk up commitments to our service personnel and not provide concrete action to match it. As it stands, we are already letting them down with substandard housing and a lack of service provision for mental health and social care. The Bill provides the perfect opportunity for us to do more.

The Government state in the Bill that public bodies should give “due regard” to the principles of the covenant, but that is too ambiguous. If the Bill is passed with such ambiguous language, there is a real threat that our service personnel will not see positive change in their day-to-day life. It will be business as usual, and we will continue to see things such as a high homelessness rate among our veterans.

The Bill places a legal responsibility on local authorities to deliver on the covenant in housing, healthcare and education without providing them with any additional funding to do so. If the Government intend to outsource responsibility for delivering on the covenant for our armed forces, I hope they will provide local authorities with the funding needed to make that a reality.

Our servicemen and women—those currently serving—and veterans deserve better, and so do their families. I want to see our armed forces, veterans and their families fully supported, but there are still too many barriers that stop them from accessing key service and support. The Government need to do more by our service personnel, and the one way they can do so is by going further in the Bill and delivering the armed forces covenant in full.