Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, it is such a great honour and privilege to follow my noble friend Lady Carberry of Muswell Hill and to be the first person in this Chamber to compliment her on her excellent maiden speech, which displayed such knowledge, based, as we know, on personal experience. As she herself has just told the House, she has had a long career in the trade union movement. She first became a teacher and was active in the NUT, and then she joined the TUC education department in 1978. Some 10 years later, she was appointed the first head of its equal rights department. In 2003, she was appointed to the post of assistant general secretary of the TUC and stayed in the TUC until she formally retired 10 years ago.

In her time as assistant general secretary, she served with distinction under the general secretaryships of my noble friend Lord Barber, who is, I am glad to say, in his place, and my noble friend Lady O’Grady. Of course, she served in the TUC at the same time as my noble friend Lord Monks. She was too modest in her speech to tell the House about the range of other appointments she has held. She was a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Equal Opportunities Commission. She is a commissioner on the Low Pay Commission, a board member of Transport for London, a trustee of the People’s History Museum, a director of Trade Union Fund Managers, an alternate member of the Takeover Panel and an honorary fellow of St Hugh’s College Oxford.

My noble friend Lady Carberry has long been a model for, and advocate of, positive trade unionism that adds value to the person, the organisation and the country. She has, over the years, earned respect across the trade union movement, with employers and with Ministers of whatever kind, Labour and Conservative. She is a great believer in partnership and, I am sure, she will bring those values to bear to the business of this House for many years to come.

I am speaking in support of the Bill, but I do so with some trepidation. I am conscious of the fact that many of those taking part in the debate have had enormous experience of the Armed Forces, including those who served in office, whereas I myself have had none. It is true that my dad was an RAF pilot; he got his wings just before the war ended. His older brother, my uncle Michael, was a fighter pilot who was killed just after D-Day. His father, my grandfather—the original Viscount Stansgate—served in the Second World War as an air commodore and saw active service in his 60s. Before that, he served in the First World War, before the RAF was even founded, flying missions in various theatres. By comparison, I come to this subject completely afresh, although I hope to make a brief and worthwhile contribution.

Before I come to the Bill, I must declare an interest. My noble friend the Minister, in introducing his speech, declared an interest, and I have an interest to declare that I would not have been able to declare even one week ago. I hope the House will understand when I say how happy I am that the interest I have to declare is that, on Saturday—four days ago—my daughter Emily announced her engagement to Group Captain James Doyle, who is a serving officer in the Royal Air Force. As the House will understand, I suddenly find myself with a real interest in this Bill, and I see it in a new light.

My noble friend has set out the nature of the Bill and some of the reasons for it. All Members will have been aware over the years of incidents and situations that have occurred in the Armed Forces that have given rise to grave concern and which have needed to be investigated. The proposed commissioner for the Armed Forces and their families is important, because it will provide an independent and impartial advocate to address concerns for their well-being, to ensure accountability and to improve the overall well-being of service members and their loved ones. I have compiled a list of seven reasons why I think the role is crucial.

First, it will help protect rights and well-being. Service members and their families, as others here know better than I, may face challenges related to pay, housing—mentioned by the noble and gallant Lord already—healthcare, mental health support or unfair treatment. Secondly, I hope it will provide confidential and impartial support, because it is possible that many military personnel fear retaliation for speaking up. The new, direct ways of contacting the commissioner will, I hope, provide a safe, confidential way to report grievances without fear of negative consequences. Thirdly, it should ensure fair treatment, because the commissioner will now have a statutory authority, under the Bill, to investigate cases of discrimination, harassment or mistreatment.

Fourthly, it will bridge the gap between the military and their families. Families of service members, as we have heard from the noble Baroness in her maiden speech, face unique challenges, such as frequent relocations and deployments, and that alone can be very disruptive. Fifthly, it will hold the leadership accountable. The commissioner will help ensure that military institutions uphold high standards of ethics, fairness and accountability.

Sixthly—I think this is a key component of the Bill—it is surely the case that, when service members and their families have access to and confidence in a fair resolution of their concerns, it reduces stress, increases morale, and leads to a more effective and committed military force, making it more likely to ensure that we retain the service personnel that we need and in which we have invested so much in training. Finally, it will enhance public trust in the military. I hope that it will reassure both the military community and the general public that their concerns are taken seriously and addressed properly.

Until I prepared for this debate, I had not fully realised the extent to which morale in the Armed Forces has declined and remained low. I am grateful for the House of Lords Library briefing, which Members will have seen. It draws explicit attention to the fact that

“concerns have been raised about various aspects of service life, including morale, pay and living conditions as well as the impact of cultural and behavioural issues”.

Of course, this is a manifesto Bill, and it is good to see that it has a degree of cross-party support. It passed through the other place in a bipartisan spirit, and I hope the same will be true today. It is not always the case with manifesto Bills, as we saw in this House but two days ago.

In the time I have left, I want to raise a number of questions that I think need to be addressed. Although my noble friend may say that some of them can be safely left to the secondary legislation, I hope he will be able to shed some light on some of them.

First, I understand that the commissioner will not be a serving member of the Armed Forces, and that is sensible, but would it not be an advantage if she or he has had military experience? Will the commissioner have available to her or him an advisory board of people with military experience, and preferably of a younger generation, who might be more in tune with the purpose and spirit of the Bill? I have heard it said that the military covenant is not worth the paper it is written on without the resources to make it a reality. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure the House that, were the allocated resources to run out, there is a government commitment to increase the commissioner’s budget in the light of proven need?

Next, what exactly will the definition of families be? Apart from those who are married—or, if I may say so, engaged—to serving Armed Forces personnel, will that include those in civil partnerships? Will it include, for example, for those who are unmarried or in informal relationships, the next of kin? Will it include parents? How will all the service personnel and their families be made aware of the new system, wherever they live in the world? Will families be able to contact the commissioner on behalf not only of a serving member of the Armed Forces but themselves? If so, that seems to me to be the biggest development that the Bill will bring about. Will the commissioner be able to consider complaints that have already been referred to the superseded ombudsman system? I think my noble friend indicated that that is probably the case.

The more I think about this Bill and the ideas and good intentions that lie behind it, the more I think that the key question is whether it will work and whether the moral compass of the Armed Forces will benefit by this change. Will the commissioner be able to convey the necessary authority to do the job? How is Parliament going to be able to know and ensure that progress is made? Does my noble friend agree that, if recruitment and retention rates can be shown to have improved, this might be a sign of success? Will the new system be embedded in the training of recruits, so that it is hardwired into the system, because it is also about building new levels of trust and, I suppose, esprit de corps?

My time is nearly up, so I will have to end here by saying this. I am not the only Member who is aware of the fact that this Bill has been brought in at a time when our Armed Forces are facing challenges that have not been faced for some time, and they will be deployed in areas and in ways that we have not seen for decades. I have always found the phrase “put in harm’s way” a rather quaint euphemism, but it is true that there is an awful lot of harm out there now. I very much hope that this Bill, if it achieves anything, can develop our Armed Forces as the effective military force that the country requires, and that we can play a part in improving morale and making our Armed Forces fit for the dangerous future that lies ahead.