Armed Forces Covenant

Defence Committee

We now come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Defence Committee. Mr Calvin Bailey will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which time no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement. They should be brief questions, not full speeches. I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee member, and not the relevant Government Minister. Front Benchers may take part in questioning.

I am proud to present the Defence Committee’s fourth report of this Parliament, which is evidence of how hard the Committee has been working on behalf of Parliament and the British people in these highly volatile and uncertain times. I thank the Committee, the staff—in particular George James—and my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) for his leadership.

I am pleased to share the armed forces covenant report. As the House knows, the covenant is our society’s commitment to the armed forces community—a commitment to recognising and rewarding their service, and ensuring that they are not disadvantaged in civilian life as a result of that service. The Government said in their manifesto that they would strengthen the covenant by putting it “fully into law”.

Our report does two things: it looks at the covenant today to examine how well it is living up to society’s commitment to the armed forces; and it looks at how the Government should make that commitment stronger when they bring forward legislation. We heard that they plan to do so through the Armed Forces Bill next year.

We decided that the best way to understand how well the covenant is working was to ask the people it is designed to help, so we invited serving personnel, their families and veterans to share their experiences with us. We are hugely grateful to everyone who took the time to write to us. Their powerful contributions helped us to get to the truth on where the covenant is succeeding and where it is falling short. We are so grateful to the Secretary of State for giving his permission to serving personnel to send us their stories, as well as to the organisations who provided evidence directly to our inquiry.

The evidence painted a mixed picture of how the covenant is working today. We heard some positive stories, including from an individual who said that citing the covenant to their local NHS trust helped them get a timely mental health assessment for their child; but unfortunately such stories were in the minority. Most of the stories we received came from people who had expected the covenant to help them but found that it was ineffective or, worse, disregarded. One person who was on a waiting list for NHS treatment was told that their position on the list would transfer when they moved from Scotland to the south of England on service, but after they moved, they found themselves at the back of the queue. When they raised that with the trust, they were told that the trust

“didn’t recognise and therefore follow the armed forces covenant.”

We heard many stories like that. It is hardly surprising that those people viewed the covenant as “a gimmick”, with “no real substance”, or as something that

“looks good on public bodies’ websites but in practice means nothing at all.”

The Government are therefore right to recognise that the covenant needs to improve. Their proposal is to extend its scope, so that more areas of central Government are subjected to it. We welcome that, and we recommend that the covenant be applied to all Government Departments. With that, we expect to see Departments paying better attention to the needs of the forces community when they make policy, and we expect to see the covenant applied to areas of life that the existing duty does not cover, and areas in which the forces community experiences disadvantages, such as employment, social care, welfare and immigration, in particular for non-UK passport holders.

Order. There are no interventions during the statement.

As we say in our report, the covenant gives us all a duty to our servicemen and women. We must take it as seriously as they have taken their duty to us. I commend the report to the House.

I call the shadow Minister.

I welcome the report and congratulate all members of the Committee and the witnesses who played their part in the inquiry. Overall, may I extend the Opposition’s best wishes to our veterans, to our armed services, and to our serving men and women, who deserve our respect and utmost gratitude every day?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for outlining the contents of his report. As he will know, we sat on the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill Committee together. What role does he think the Armed Forces Commissioner could play in upholding the armed forces covenant? Could they have an independent role in assessing how Government Departments do? If that is not the right mechanism, do he or his Committee have a view on some independent scrutiny to assess whether the Government and all Departments are adhering to the covenant? Have they looked at how that could be upheld?

I thank the hon. Member for his points. I join him in thanking our servicemen and women for their service and recognising their sacrifices. On the role of the Armed Forces Commissioner, the report states in part 3 that there have been no recognisable measures of success. The Minister and his Department will have to take that on and bring forward some answers. It is probably within that framework that the Armed Forces Commissioner will have some role. However, it is a critical failing of our application of the armed forces covenant that success is not measured, so it is not monitored almost anywhere.

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for representing the Defence Committee. Labour’s commitment to fully enshrine the armed forces covenant in law is a vital step in recognising the sacrifices made by our service members and their families. However, our report examines some significant gaps in coverage. In particular, I highlight the treatment of non-UK personnel and their families. Unlike other routes, the immigration status given to serving and recently discharged personnel does not allow them to work or access social security. Will my hon. Friend join me in urging the Ministry of Defence to resolve this issue with the Home Office well in advance of the covenant’s expansion?

I thank my hon. Friend for raising such an important point. She does a great job in representing the home of the British Army and raises the issues consistently, both with the all-party parliamentary group on the armed forces community and on the Defence Committee—indeed, she did so throughout the inquiry.

My hon. Friend’s point is powerfully made because it supports what the forces’ families federations brought forward in their evidence. They pointed out that:

“There is no other immigration route in which someone legally in the UK isn’t allowed to work or claim benefits whilst their application is being decided.”

That is a massive travesty and a failure, and an example of the armed forces facing a unique disadvantage. It is exactly the sort of anomaly that an updated covenant should attempt to address.

I want to put on the record my thanks to the hon. and gallant Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) for bringing the report to the Chamber today. The Government must urgently reconsider the proposed changes to the application of inheritance tax on certain armed forces death-in-service payments. The Forces Pension Society has described that as

“a direct breach of the Armed Forces Covenant”,

warning that it will have a “corrosive” impact on serving personnel and undermine trust in Government. Does the hon. Member agree with that, and what steps does he think the Government need to take to rectify the situation as quickly as possible?

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and for raising a valid and valuable point that the Government must take forward and consider. It was not part of the Armed Forces Act 2021, but it is the type of thing that other Government Departments should be looking at. A series of questions about that have gone to the Department to see whether it is something that could be tackled. I know that the Minister for Veterans and People, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who is here on the Front Bench, is working on that.

We must remember, however, that there is a difference between death in service and death while serving. There is an important distinction there, because to not recognise that can create a whole load of complexities that people who have served will understand probably more uniquely than others.

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for bringing this important report to us today and for the Committee’s work. North Lincolnshire council has established a physical armed forces hub dedicated to providing comprehensive support to all members of the armed forces community, offering assistance on health and housing. Doncaster city council has the veteran’s innovation fund, which provides funds of up to £300 to help with barriers that impact individuals’ wellbeing.

That is all amazing, but if our veterans do not know about it in the first place, it cannot help them. They deserve our respect and they deserve our support, particularly when they come out fighting for each and every one of us. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as we go into the Easter recess, there is a need for us to make a priority of promoting the armed forces covenant in every one of our constituencies?

I am aware of the work that my hon. Friend is doing to support the armed forces community in Lincolnshire, particularly in Donny, which was an old and well-loved RAF station. Bringing back jobs to the community that will provide opportunities for veterans is very important. I agree with him that we all need to go out and champion the armed forces covenant because it impacts us all: if we do not get it right, we will adversely impact recruitment and retention and therefore our armed forces’ ability to serve us.

Does the hon. and gallant Member think that our Northern Ireland veterans, and specifically our former special forces members, are under attack from the very state that they served? Does he think that they deserve protection under the armed forces covenant?

As the hon. and gallant Member knows, this matter was not raised—correction, he indeed raised the issue and received a response from the Minister about how our veterans are being handled and the complexities involved. I do not agree that they are under attack. I believe in justice and the rule of law and that those have been equally applied. The Government’s approach is valid and honest, and it will do right by our veterans in the end.