Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-03-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Astor (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, two separate groups of amendments were made to the Bill in the other place. Commons Amendments 1 to 20 reflect changes to the Bill that were made following the Commons Committee stage. They extend the role of the proposed Service Complaints Ombudsman in a number of important ways and are the most significant of the amendments in this group. Commons Amendments 21 to 27 make some changes to equalities legislation in Northern Ireland that are needed as a consequence of the Bill and make minor changes to the transitional provisions. I therefore intend to speak mainly about Amendments 1 to 20, although I will cover the other amendments at the end In Commons Committee on 10 February, it was agreed that the role of the proposed ombudsman should be extended in three ways: first, that the ombudsman should be allowed to look at the substance, or merits, of an individual complaint, not just whether it had been handled correctly by the services; secondly, to require the ombudsman to look for any maladministration that may have occurred in individual cases, not just the specific maladministration alleged by the complainant; and, finally, the Bill was changed in relation to when the ombudsman can look at allegations of undue delay The changes that were made to the Bill in Commons Committee were recommended by the House of Commons Defence Committee in its report on the Bill which was published on 23 October last year—that is, after the Bill had left this House. It was clear when the Bill was debated in the Commons that the changes recommended by the Select Committee had cross-party support. The Government therefore accepted in principle the changes to the Bill that were made in Commons Committee and tabled a number of government amendments at Commons Report to make sure that the changes to the ombudsman’s role were clear and worked from a legal and drafting point of view. The government amendments also filled an important gap in the ombudsman’s powers to make recommendations in individual cases that had been left by the original amendments. The government amendments were agreed at Commons Report and are therefore the ones we are looking at today Although the amendments extend the scope of the ombudsman’s role, they follow the framework which the Bill originally set out. It is important to emphasise a point that has sometimes been lost in our debates—the ombudsman will normally become involved in individual complaints only once the consideration of it by the services has finished. That is an important point. The ombudsman is the backstop, the place of last resort on individual complaints that have been through the internal system. If complaints are successfully dealt with by the services, there will be no need for the complainant to go to the ombudsman It is important to make that point because of the third aspect of change agreed in the other place. This allowed the ombudsman to investigate allegations of undue delay in three different respects: as part of a maladministration investigation; where delay is alleged in relation to a complaint that is being considered by the services; and, finally, where there is an allegation of undue delay before a complaint has even been made It is in everyone’s interests that we have a complaints process where roles and powers are clear so that there is no confusion. It is also important that the wishes of the individual remain at the heart of the process, given that this is an individual grievance procedure, and equally that the rights of anyone alleged to have committed a wrong against another person are also protected. It remains the case that the services will, in every case, still be left to decide how to respond to any findings and recommendations made by the ombudsman, even in relation to the extended scope that the ombudsman will now have The Chief of the Defence Staff has confirmed that the amendments do not substantially affect the primacy of the chain of command because the Service Complaints Ombudsman can investigate the substance of a complaint only after the chain of command has done so, or where the chain of command decides not to investigate and the complainant still wishes to pursue the matter. He has made it clear that a well run organisation should have nothing to fear from the system that would be put in place if these amendments are made.