Armed Forces Bill — House of Commons, 2021-06-23
Topic: Defense
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is appropriate that this Bill has come back to the House in the week in which we celebrate Armed Forces Day. I add my thanks to members of the armed forces who are currently contributing to our fight against covid, and I pay tribute to them for their service. It was disappointing to hear earlier that members of our armed forces are still being deployed overseas without being fully vaccinated I take this opportunity to give a shout out to the team from Kayak 4 Heroes, who are currently undertaking a journey of 1,400 km from Land’s End to John O’Groats, by kayak, around the coast of the United Kingdom and along some of our canals and waterways. I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing them the very best of luck in their endeavours I have made it clear throughout the passage of this Bill that it lacks the punch required to make a real difference, and the Bill’s commitment to the armed forces covenant falls far short of what it ought to be. Many stakeholders, including the Royal British Legion, have argued that the Bill should go further in strengthening the covenant in law, but many areas have been missed out, such as visas for Commonwealth personnel, pay, DWP issues and proper representation for serving personnel I join the shadow Minister in paying tribute to the group from Fighting with Pride, Caroline Paige and Craig Jones, for working so hard to undo some of the injustices of the past. Labour’s proposed new clause 4 is an opportunity to take this further. We have started to recognise that there have been injustices, and we know that many individuals who were convicted of sex offences in the armed forces lost their pensions and continued to have the label of "sex offender" in civilian life, for undertaking a consensual relationship with another person. There are real issues here that still have to be addressed Many people were also discharged from the armed forces following spurious allegations that were not related to their sexuality, although their sexuality was the real reason for it. It will be very difficult for us to capture the number of people involved, so I urge the Minister not just to take proposed new clause 4 seriously but to look at how we identify these individuals and put right the wrongs that have been done to them Labour’s amendment 7 addresses the service justice system, and the Minister has given us assurances this afternoon that he will be implementing many of the recommendations of the Lyons review. That is good, but I still argue that sexual assaults would be better dealt with in civilian courts, which have far greater experience of such cases. We do people an injustice by continuing to go through a military system, where that experience is not always present. While the Minister is implementing some of the recommendations of the Lyons review, I ask him to undertake an annual review of how it is operating in practice The Minister also gave us assurances on service accommodation, but these accommodation issues are repeatedly raised, year on year, by serving personnel. The recent National Audit Office report on single living accommodation describes a litany of neglect, and accommodation for families often falls far below the standards we would expect.