Armed Forces Bill

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

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

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I welcome the opportunity to speak in today’s important Armed Forces Bill debate. Currently, over 5,000 members of our armed forces are on the frontline battling the coronavirus pandemic, in what has been described as the biggest homeland operation in peacetime. The vaccination roll-out, lateral flow testing site support, and community testing are just some of the 70 different tasks undertaken across the UK by service personnel in response to this deadly virus. My Slough constituents and I are extremely grateful for our armed forces’ work during this time. Their commitment to protecting our nation continues to be proven through their invaluable service, further proving the need for the Government to fully commit to the armed forces covenant. This Bill presents a real opportunity—a chance to practise what the Ministry of Defence preaches, and ensure legislation reflects our armed forces covenant.

I support this Bill, but I encourage the Government to widen its scope to ensure that it makes a real difference for our armed forces, veterans and their families. As we know, generally, the covenant covers a pledge that service personnel will not be at any disadvantage compared with civilians with equal circumstances, and that there will be special consideration in specific circumstances—sadly, often due to injury or bereavement—as is right. I am proud to have had family members in the armed forces, and to have had the privilege of being involved in the armed forces parliamentary scheme, meeting inspirational people along the way and learning about their essential roles. Having also served as a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and headed up the national Sikh war memorial campaign, I fully appreciate the immense dedication of and sacrifices made by our brave servicemen and women. With service to our nation must come lifelong recognition of those things, but as things stand the promises made to them are not being delivered and it is clear that the Government must do more.

Last year, the Government said that they were

“concerned that the current legislation is not enough in itself to ensure the future of the Covenant and the support it offers our Armed Forces Community.”

Yet as the Bill comes to the House today, it is clear that those concerns have not been fully addressed. It also appears as though the Government, as with many other matters, want to outsource their covenant commitments but without giving adequate resources, leaving the service community with a postcode lottery of potential support based on local authority budgets that have already been squeezed by Tory austerity and this pandemic. There are too many barriers to accessing the services people need and these must be addressed rather than allowed to proliferate.

Whether in housing, healthcare or education, there is a serious risk that setting a legal standard below the current voluntary level could mean a race to the bottom. Even the assurances that the flawed investigations process introduced in the overseas operations Bill would be remedied by this Bill have yet to be seen. These are real lives, and real consequences. I am extremely disappointed that Ministers have not taken the opportunity to go further in improving the support for service protection and access to justice for our service community.