Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what will be the (a) role and (b) remit of the proposed new Armed Forces Commissioner.

The Armed Forces Commissioner will be a strong independent champion of our Armed Forces and their families, to improve service life. The new Commissioner will be a direct point of contact for service personnel and their families to raise issues impacting service life. They will have the power to proactively launch independent reviews into issues affecting Service personnel and their families more widely, and to lay those reports before Parliament. The Commissioner will also incorporate the functions currently undertaken by the Service Complaints Ombudsman

The Armed Forces Commissioner will strengthen Parliamentary oversight of issues facing our Armed Forces personnel and their families. The Commissioner will be subject to pre-appointment scrutiny by the Defence Select Committee and will report directly to Parliament, not Ministers, via an annual report.

There will be opportunities to fully debate the role and remit of the Armed Forces Commissioner when the Government brings forward the relevant Legislation referenced in the King’s Speech.