Armed Forces Bill - Report

House of Lords, 20 October 2026.

Lord Katz (Labour)

My Lords, before we start the first group, I remind the House of some useful guidance on Report in the Companion. In keeping with the spirit of Report, I will keep my remarks brief. Speeches should be more concise overall, and arguments deployed in Committee should not be repeated at length. Noble Lords should not summarise or repeat at length points made by others and should not speak more than once, except with the leave of the House, usually only briefly, to clarify a material point. Finally, the House will recall recently agreeing a Procedure Committee report which reinforced that, when pressing or withdrawing amendments, Members must be brief and should not summarise the debate or revisit points made when moving the amendment. If we collectively adhere to this very useful guidance, we will make swift progress and complete Report at a reasonable time tonight.

Clause 2: Armed forces covenant

Amendment 1

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

My Lords, before I turn to government Amendment 1, I acknowledge the rather obvious point that my noble friend Lord Coaker is unable to be in the House today. I am sure your Lordships will join me in wishing him a speedy recovery from his illness. He hopes to be back in the House next week. I am also sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, is temporarily away from the Chamber. I send her my best wishes as well.

As a result, I am here in my noble friend’s stead. As noble Lords know, I have been alongside him throughout all the stages of the Bill and have learned so much from the informed contributions of noble Lords across the House on this important legislation. We share a deep interest in matters of defence and security, and, specifically in this context, the well-being of our Armed Forces in all areas, understanding its importance not just for its own sake but for the defence of our nation. I thank noble Lords for their thoughtful scrutiny and constructive engagement with the Armed Forces Bill, both in this Chamber and in the many conversations and meetings that my noble friend and I have had with individual Members and interested organisations. I look forward to continuing in that constructive spirit in today’s debate. I declare an interest from the outset that my husband serves in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force as a reservist.

Government Amendment 1 takes forward the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee recommendation that regulations bringing guidance under Section 343A into force should remain subject to the draft affirmative procedure. I beg to move.

Lord Harlech (Conservative)

My Lords, I declare my interest as a serving officer in the Army Reserve. I will speak to Amendment 2 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie. I also take this opportunity to send my best wishes to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and my noble friend Lady Goldie, and to welcome the Minister to her place.

This amendment merges the two that I tabled in Committee and confines them to health bodies alone. That change answers the Minister’s objection in Committee, which was that national authorities and Ministers make decisions about the Armed Forces community in general, rather than about individuals. However, where a health body is dealing with an individual, it would have to establish and record whether that person is a serving reservist, although answering would remain voluntary and a refusal could not affect any treatment.

The body would then be required to have due regard to that person’s need to meet the medical and dental fitness standards required for callout. Clinical need would continue to govern treatment decisions throughout, and reserve status could be weighed only as between patients of equivalent clinical priority, so the provision is a tie-break which cannot displace a single patient with a greater clinical need.

Let me deal at the outset with the Minister’s point in Committee that the amendment would require preference irrespective of the needs of everyone else. With respect, it would not, and the text before the House says so in clear terms. The case for the amendment rests on two things. The first is that the duty in Clause 2 cannot operate on a cohort that nobody can see. In Committee, my noble friend Lady Goldie asked the noble Lord the Minister directly whether the obligation lies on the reservist to declare or on the body to ask, and the answer was neither. He told the House that it was not the reservist’s responsibility and that the Government regard identification as good practice to be encouraged through guidance rather than a statutory requirement. So we are creating a statutory duty of “due regard” while declining to provide the means of exercising it.

The Minister also told the Committee that the recording of someone’s Armed Forces status does not always happen as it could or should, and I agreed with him. The National Health Service has had a clinical code for reservists for four years, but it is barely used. In my own service, I have never once been asked when booking a medical or dental appointment whether I am a member of the Armed Forces.

The second reason is capability. This Bill extends liability to serve, with recall, to the age of 65 and a lower threshold for mobilisation. Each of those provisions assumes that the individual is fit to deploy. The Minister confirmed in Committee that reservists will not be mobilised unless they meet the relevant service medical standards. That is precisely the point, because a reservist who cannot obtain a dental appointment fails that standard and becomes non-deployable. That is not just an inconvenience but a capability loss: one the state has created by asking that person to be ready in the first place.

My noble friend Lady Fraser gave the Committee the clearest illustration when her daughter, whom I have the honour of serving alongside in 1st Battalion London Guards, received callout papers for Kenya with the Welsh Guards. She had been waiting for treatment for a wisdom tooth and was very nearly undeployable, were it not for the rules being adapted.

I asked the Minister two questions in Committee and received answers to neither. What is the department’s assessment of the proportion of trained reservists who are currently medically or dentally non-deployable? Will the Government publish the fitness standards irrespective of what happens to this amendment? Nobody can have due regard to a standard that they are not permitted to see. This amendment creates no charge on public funds, so I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness has to say in light of it. From the conversations I have had with other noble Lords outside of the Chamber, I feel that there is growing concern over this issue and that the Government and the Ministry of Defence need to start taking some action.

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative)

I rise briefly in support of my noble friend, because I have co-signed the amendment. I add my wishes that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and my noble friend Lady Goldie, get better soon, but I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus: it is lovely to see her here.

I declare an interest: my daughter is a reservist. I think the problem we have here, and the reason I am so keen to support my noble friend Lord Harlech with this amendment, is that I think what the Government and the people in Main Building think happens, and what actually happens, are two very different things. This is a very carefully worded amendment. It is not about clinical need or about asking people to do things that are above and beyond; it is about operational readiness and about ensuring that, when there is a blockage in the system, there is a simple way to unblock it. As I say, having due regard is very welcome, but, if it is not being implemented, we are leaving people unable to deploy because of things that are easily fixable. That is why I support my noble friend. Whatever happens to this amendment, please will the noble Baroness ensure that the spirit of the covenant actually happens on the ground?

Lord Stevens of Birmingham (Crossbench)

My Lords, I too support Amendment 2 in this group from the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, which proposes a modest enhancement of the support that the NHS offers reservists.

In looking at the redraft that the noble Lord has produced since Committee, I applied three short tests: is it workable, would it be beneficial and is it fair? I think the answer to all three is yes. It is workable because, as he says, essentially there are no additional costs associated with this. The people who would be eligible have already been deemed to have a clinical need for some sort of procedure or support from the NHS; it is not expanding eligibility above and beyond what is already there. In fact, I think we have an easier mechanism on offer that would mean individuals are not repeatedly being asked the same question. If we look at the debate that is happening on the Health Bill in parallel, we see that we are set to have a single patient record, which in fact will answer a lot of the administrative complexity that otherwise would have arisen were this amendment implemented, absent what the Health Bill is likely to bring about. Therefore, it is certainly workable.

Is it likely to be beneficial? It is a very modest measure —perhaps too modest. It places additional duties on local hospitals and community services. It does not place duties on general dentistry, for example. It may well be, frankly, that more help would be of benefit. However, it is certainly likely, in its own modest way, to make a difference, for the reasons that were articulated in Committee.

The third question is: is it fair? Is it displacing large numbers of other people from their place in the waiting list? Doing a bit of back-of-the-envelope maths on that, I think the answer is: clearly not. We have 6.25 million unique individuals waiting in England for some form of routine care. Even if every reservist in the country were on the waiting list, we would be talking about under 2% of the slots. The differential impact on everybody else is minimal.

In fact, this is not a new principle. Those who are students of the National Health Service will know that between 1953 and at least 1997, the principle was well established that certain classes of veterans from the First and Second World Wars received priority treatment for certain conditions, and even today, rightly, merchant seafarers receive fast-track access for routine care under the Dreadnought Medical Service on offer at St Thomas’ Hospital so they can get back to sea as fast as possible. This principle is well understood and has been in place for many decades across the health service; we are just looking to apply it in this particular case.

My conclusion is that, yes, this is workable, beneficial and fair. We will be having a debate in the next 12 to 18 months on the defence readiness and national resilience Bill, and we will need to have a lot more of this kind of national conversation. If we cannot even get this modest measure over the line, I hesitate to think about what the bigger debate will yield.

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation, noting that the Minister is not in his place because he is ill and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, is not in her place because she is ill. For the benefit of the House, I have done a Covid test today; I do not have Covid. I have not travelled to Kenya or anywhere else, so I have not caught anything from international travel, so I think I am fit and safe to be here. Obviously, we send our best wishes to both the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for swift recoveries, and welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus, to this speaking role from the Front Bench.

I am delighted that the first amendment is a government amendment, and one that I assume is in response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s request that we move to ensure that any statutory guidance is subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure. Needless to say, we support that from these Benches. In Committee, I also gave these Benches’ support to the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, and the noble Lord, Lord Harlech. As the noble Lord has pointed out, Amendment 2 focuses on the health bodies. It is, in many ways, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, pointed out, a small amendment.

One question I have for the Minister, because it also relates to an amendment I have in a later group, is whether she and His Majesty’s Government are satisfied that everything is in place at the moment: that if somebody is a reservist, they will be able to get the dental or other treatment they would need to be able to go on deployment and will not be held back by a wisdom tooth. Clearly, we need all our forces, regulars and reserves, to be fit for training and deployment whenever required. I support Amendment 2, but it would be useful to understand His Majesty’s Government’s position on this.

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

My Lords, first, I apologise to the House on behalf of my noble friend Lady Goldie, who unfortunately is unable to be here today because of illness. The Minister, whom I welcome to her place, will have to make do with just one Scot on the Opposition Benches today.

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative)

Excuse me!

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

I meant the Front Bench. I assure the House that my noble friend is well on the mend—I have spoken to her several times today, as I am sure your Lordships can imagine—and has every intention of being back among your Lordships at the earliest opportunity. I also wish the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, a very speedy recovery, and we miss him.

I am grateful to the Minister for tabling Amendment 1 to respond to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I concur with the findings of the committee and agree that the guidance on the covenant duty should be subject to the affirmative procedure.

I appreciate the intent behind Amendment 2, tabled by my noble friend Lord Harlech, and agree that better care for service personnel and veterans is required. Both categories of service personnel deserve the very best of health support, and this House has enduring admiration for their service. This is particularly the case given the Government’s expansion of the covenant duty to cover all health bodies. However, I note that the person’s military status is not necessarily relevant in all clinical settings. As such, it might be possible that such a duty ends up placing additional administrative burdens for little medical benefit. Accident and emergency departments already end up asking a vast array of questions of patients, many of whom are in distress or pain and do not want to answer a huge deluge of questions. I offer these remarks not as a criticism of the amendment, but as some food for thought on the practicalities of a particular situation.

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

First, I thank noble Lords and noble Baronesses for their kind words, and I will pass on their thoughts to my noble friend Lord Coaker. I am grateful to all those who have contributed to the debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, for his service in the reserves; for championing reservist matters, as he is doing in this case; and for his time in discussing the amendment.

The Government agree that reservists must be medically ready for mobilisation as much as possible. Service fitness standards are already assessed through establish pre-mobilisation medical checks, as everybody knows, and no reservist is mobilised unless they meet the required standards. We all agree with that, I think.

I am grateful for the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, about the specific case studies and issues. I know about them from my service background, and I appreciate and understand them. Noble Lords are speaking to somebody who is sympathetic, I would say.

Briefly, let me answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, regarding the number of personnel or proportion of reservists who are unfit. We do not, I am afraid, release information on the number of people who are deployable or meet fitness standards, for reasons of national security. I apologise that the noble Lord did not get an answer earlier, but I would be happy to discuss this further with him outside.

Amendment 2 would place a new statutory duty on UK health bodies to take reservist mobilisation status into account when delivering healthcare. That risks undermining the long-standing principle of NHS treatment being based on clinical need, not employment status. I note the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, about the Merchant Navy, of which I was not aware.

We recognise the concerns about whether reservist status is consistently identified and recorded across relevant healthcare settings. We are committed to working on the gap that has been identified by the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, to which other noble Lords have referred. We understand that there is work to be done in this space. This is not a statement disregarding the points that have been made; rather, it is to say that the approaches that the MoD is taking are slightly different from what is suggested in the amendment.

I agree that the reserves are vital to defence. As noble Lords will know, in light of the strategic defence review recommendations, significant work is ongoing across the piece on reservists’ experiences, which will remain an important topic for discussion in your Lordships’ House. We are already working with defence and health officials, through the reserves medical readiness summit, to identify available evidence and where we can work to improve the gap that I mentioned. We believe that that work, rather than a new statutory duty, is the right way to improve reservist readiness.

The Bill already strengthens support for reservists by extending the Armed Forces covenant duty to health bodies, helping to address disadvantage arising from service life. We will continue to work across government to help develop understanding of the covenant and what practical application can look like, to support our Armed Forces community, of which our reservists are a vital part.

Amendment 1 agreed.

Amendment 2 not moved.

Amendment 3

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, in moving Amendment 3 in my name, I shall speak also to my consequential amendment—Amendment 60, I think—which is very minor, at the end.

This amendment on single living accommodation, or what we now call the military homes standard, would have a profound impact on many service personnel and their families. Much of this Armed Forces Bill talks about accommodation for service families, which is obviously vital, but there appears to be an omission regarding single living accommodation. During the passage of the Renters’ Rights Bill, my noble friends tabled amendments to ensure that service family accommodation reaches decent homes standards, but they did not extend to single living accommodation.

In his response to my amendment in Committee, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Coaker—pointed out that there was not a decent homes standard for single living accommodation and reminded your Lordships that, for example, students do not have a standard of accommodation enshrined in law and people in shared houses do not have a similar standard either. In many ways the analogy seemed apposite, but it is not.

As my honourable friend in the other place, Ian Roome, pointed out, many service personnel spend all their service lives in single living accommodation. They may be single, married, in long-term relationships or have families but, because they have chosen to live away from home during the week, they will find themselves in single living accommodation. Noble Lords may remember their student accommodation. It may have been lavish. They might feel that they would be happy to spend 28 years in such single living accommodation week in, week out. However, most people feel that they want to move on from student accommodation. We need to think about what we are asking of our service personnel.

I went away to draft a different amendment that would meet what we hoped to do in ensuring a decent homes standard for single living accommodation. The amendment before your Lordships’ House has been substantially reworded and reworked since Committee. It is intended to create a decent homes standard for single living accommodation for service personnel that would be no lower than the decent homes standards applied by the Housing Act 2004. Across the House, we are united in our support for His Majesty’s Armed Forces, service personnel and their families. For recruitment and retention, we owe it to all our service personnel to ensure that their accommodation is of a decent standard. I hope that your Lordships can support this amendment. I beg to move.

Lord Craig of Radley (Crossbench)

My Lords, I support what the noble Baroness said. It is not right that there should be two approaches to standards in relation to serving personnel. I lived in service accommodation, although not until I was a squadron leader as none had been available. Now that the services are smaller, there is more chance of service accommodation being available. If we want to ensure that accommodation is available for not only the service person but their family, spouse or partner then accommodation of a high standard for all is required.

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

My Lords, in Committee my noble friend Lady Goldie and I tabled amendments on the new defence housing service and we opposed Clause 3 standing part of the Bill. As my noble friend said then, I appreciate that the establishment of the DHS as a non-departmental public body is a settled position of the Government as a result of their defence housing strategy. We did not sense sufficient support from around your Lordships’ House for removing that clause; for that reason, we have not re-tabled such an amendment on Report. Although I remain critical of the form in which this new body is to be constituted, if it is to exist we must make every effort to ensure that it works for those whom it is intended to serve—our valued Armed Forces personnel.

That is why we have tabled Amendments 6 and 7. These amendments are a simplified version of that which we tabled in Committee and would require the board of the defence housing service to have three representatives of the Armed Forces with recent experience of living in service family accommodation. The intent here is to ensure that truth is spoken to power, giving service personnel direct involvement in the operations of the new body and a realisation that the remaining members of the board have lived experience among their number. I am extremely grateful that the Minister took the time, alongside his officials, for a briefing before the Recess. I was reassured at the level of service engagement in the defence housing strategy and the fact that the Government envisage ongoing involvement in this new service. As such, I will not seek to divide the House on these amendments.

I offer my support to Amendment 3 from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham. At that same briefing I previously mentioned, I noted that the Government intend to run a second review to look at single living accommodation and produce yet another strategy. I have to confess to being dubious about this proposal. Would it not have made much more sense for the previous strategy to address all aspects of military housing, as opposed to focusing only on family accommodation and leaving those in single living accommodation potentially in the lurch?

While we are discussing such a key issue as defence housing, I must say that it is of grave concern to these Benches, and I am sure others, that the Government have reduced the budget for repairs to military housing in this Parliament, particularly given the absolute assurances made by Ministers during the Public Bill Committee in the other place. On 18 March, then Minister Al Carns said to the Select Committee on the Bill that

“£9 billion has been ringfenced”.

On 26 March, he further clarified that the

“£9 billion will be allocated to the Defence Housing Service

On 25 June, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard, stated in a Written Answer that £4 billion of that money will be spent in this Parliament and £5 billion will be spent in the next Parliament. However, when the defence investment plan was published a mere five days later, it allocated only £2.7 billion for upgrades to service family accommodation over the entire period from 2026-30. Even this commitment has not been endorsed. In a letter to the chair of the Public Accounts Committee in September, the department confirmed that £800 million of the investment into the service family accommodation had been deferred to the next Parliament. Perhaps more worryingly, that letter also confirmed a further £950 million deferral of investment into single living accommodation. Could the Minister please confirm with a simple yes or no whether the department stands by those last two stated figures? Will there be a £950 million deferral of investment into single living accommodation?

This is highly regrettable and undermines the delivery of the Government’s previous commitment. Could the Minister confirm whether the Government believe that this new funding profile is sufficient to deliver the full planned upgrade? Rather neatly, the combined value of these two deferred investments is precisely equivalent to the amount of shortfall over which the then Secretary of State for Defence, and current Chancellor, resigned. How will the Ministry of Defence find this money from its already overstretched resources when the Treasury is still refusing to commit to a date when defence spending will increase to 3% of gross domestic product?

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Coaker set out in Committee, and as he explained in some detail previously, the Government do not consider it appropriate to tie single living accommodation to the decent homes standard. I will address as many of the points on SLA as I can.

The review on single living accommodation, to which the noble Earl, Lord Minto, referred, is ongoing. It was launched in 2026. It is examining and developing recommendations on standards, including how they were modelled and monitored. I am told it is due to be published very shortly, and I look forward to discussing and debating the outcomes of that review as soon as it comes out.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, that we do not consider the decent homes standard to be the appropriate mechanism for assessing single living accommodation due to the nature of having shared facilities, as she alluded to in discussing student accommodation. Clearly, we all have varied experience of student accommodation. I certainly would want it to be of a higher standard than some of mine, but that was some time ago.

I also take the point made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, about the state of service single living accommodation and the importance of improving it. I absolutely agree; indeed, I have stayed in single living accommodation over the last few years myself and I know that it needs improvement. I have also taught non-commissioned officers and know the problems that they have with their accommodation at RAF Halton, some of which are still to be resolved.

The noble Earl, Lord Minto, asked me about the spending and the results of the defence investment plan. We are going to be deferring £950 million this Parliament. Under current planning assumptions, approximately 10,100 single living accommodation bed spaces will have been impacted by the DIP. Despite that deferral, though, there is substantial investment in SLA still programmed, including more than £1.4 billion of direct investment in new-build SLA planned before 2030—so, in the first four years of the defence investment plan.

Government Amendments 4 and 5 are clarifying amendments to ensure that the legislation is clear that the defence housing service will benefit from Crown immunity for the transaction of acquiring property as well as when it holds the property. That is the current situation with the Ministry of Defence, and the amendment seeks to maintain the status quo in the management of defence property.

The Government welcome the intent behind Amendments 6 and 7 and confirm that we entirely share the objective. The Government are fully committed to ensuring that the voice of service families is at the heart of the new organisation. I will set out briefly how that objective will be achieved.

First, the independent board which will hold the DHS to account will include a dedicated non-executive member with service family insight. By that, I mean someone with in-depth experience of service family accommodation. The recruitment for that crucial board member has already been launched, reflecting the priority the Government place on this position. A representative from the Army Families Federation will be involved in the selection of this candidate.

Secondly, a governance framework has already been set up, in advance of the DHS being formally established, which will ensure that service family voices are heard in the day-to-day running of the organisation. A new customer committee has already been established, featuring representatives from the Armed Forces families federations. In addition, new regional customer experience committees will be established, recognising that the views of personnel and their families will differ across different nations and regions.

Thirdly, one of the benefits of the DHS being set up as a public-purpose, public sector organisation within the MoD family is that it will include military personnel on its staff. I asked for clarification on that; by staff, I mean the broader staff in the defence housing service, not the members of the board. This includes a new DHS chief of staff military position, which has already been filled. As I alluded to just now, that post will sit alongside a number of other military personnel working within the DHS, ensuring that the voices of service personnel are at the heart of the organisation.

Fourthly, the Government are determined that the DHS empowers service personnel and their families to hold it to account directly. In this spirit, the Secretary of State recently launched an initiative to pilot the sign-off of repairs by families, alongside a red tape challenge for Armed Forces families to propose rules and processes that can be simplified or removed entirely. I can give an example that was recently introduced, as some may be aware: the default right to have a pet in a service family home. That is just an obvious thing to make the default position. We in the MoD look forward to working with forces families to find out what other areas we could easily change that will make life so much better for them on a day-to-day basis and less burdensome and bureaucratic. I could talk on the Haythornthwaite review all day, but I am not going to get started on that right now.

Parliamentarians as well as Ministers will be able to hold the DHS to account via its reporting to Parliament, not just on the outcomes it achieves but on its responsiveness to the needs of service personnel and their families. Satisfaction with military homes has increased by 12% over the past year—2025-26—with 75% of families now saying they are satisfied, higher than the 71.3% national average for civilian landlords. That is a quite a considerable achievement, considering the challenge that has been faced by the Ministry of Defence and this Government with the state of accommodation.

I hope I have provided the necessary assurance for the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and that she can withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response. Clearly, it is significant that His Majesty’s Government are looking into a review for single living accommodation, but as the noble Earl, Lord Minto, pointed out, funding has been reduced for single living accommodation. If it is the case that a report on single living standards will be coming forward, then having this amendment to the Bill surely will enhance the hand that the MoD will have in ensuring that single living accommodation is up to standard. Therefore, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Ayes 259, Noes 173.

Amendments 4 and 5

Amendment 7A

Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus, and their officials for the very helpful meeting held last week with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and Aurora New Dawn. Even if we did not agree on everything, the discussions were helpful. The government amendments in this group are welcome, and I thank them for that. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, cannot be in their places. I hope they both recover swiftly. I look forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Katz, in due course.

Despite the fact that there are nearly 17 amendments in this group, a number of them are responding to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report, as well as to issues raised by me and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich in our amendments. I have tabled Amendments 7A and 7B in light of the response in Committee and the discussion that we had at the meeting last week with Ministers. Amendment 7A would provide a co-ordinated multi-agency response, known as MASIP, to cases of stalking across military and civilian public bodies, which would improve risk management and victim protection.

The aim of this Bill—to ensure that the military court system provides a closely similar system for victims of serious crimes to the civil system—is laudable. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and I mentioned in Committee, there are still some marked differences in the treatment of stalking offences, and therefore victims of stalking, compared with the civilian system. Amendment 7A uses the language of the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and recent legislation. Amendment 7B would require the Secretary of State to publish annual reports on progress in addressing stalking and managing it within the Armed Forces, including data on service stalking protection orders, the implementation of MASIPs and specialist stalking training.

Earlier on, I retabled Amendments 8, 9 and 10 on continuity of protection with stalking protection orders as individuals who have either been stalked or been convicted as stalkers move between the military and the civilian world. Importantly, they said that the service victims’ code must always apply to victims of sexual offences and domestic abuse offences, including giving service victims the right to access victims’ services. These were laid before the Minister had tabled Amendments 11 to 15. The government amendments do not go quite as far as I would like, but they are progress, and I recognise that.

I have also signed the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich’s amendments, which would include the protection of service police officers in broader legislation to protect the police and other emergency workers, which seems eminently sensible. I have also signed his Amendment 48, which seeks to make impersonating a service police officer an offence, giving service police the same protections as their civilian counterparts. They are really important amendments, and I am delighted that the Minister has laid amendments to bring these into law.

Amendment 11 would specifically ensure that the victims’ code in the service justice system will be presented to Parliament. This responds to some of the concerns of the Delegated Powers Committee and provides a partial reassurance to my concerns that reviews of the implementation of this new legislation would not be done publicly or transparently. If that is carried through, they will be.

However, I am still not sure that these government amendments provide as much protection for victims as I would like. Certainly, they do not quite yet match the civilian standards, including those for people being stalked, in the amendments that I have laid. I look forward to hearing from the Minister. I beg to move.

Bishop of Norwich (Bishop)

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 47 and 48 in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Goldie and Lady Brinton. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus, to her place. I wish the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, well and a speedy recovery from whatever bugs or beasties have got them. I declare an interest as the father of a soldier.

I pay tribute to the way that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has listened well and sought to improve this Bill. The Minister has worked in a positive way with the amendments I brought in Committee and now on Report, which seek, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has said, parity for service police with their civilian counterparts when they are assaulted or impersonated. I thus fully support government Amendments 44, 45 and 46 and I am grateful to the Minister and to officials who have worked on the complexity of these amendments across the nations of this country. I thank the Government for listening to service police and for bringing these important amendments. It will not be a surprise to your Lordships that I will not be pressing the amendments in my name.

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I was not intending to speak, as my noble friend Lady Brinton made all the points that needed to be made, so I merely reinforce everything she said.

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

My Lords, I am pleased to support the efforts of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich to include service police officers in the scope of the offences of assaulting an emergency worker and impersonating a police officer. To that end, I signed his amendments in Committee, and my noble friend Lady Goldie has signed them today. Noble Lords will recall that, in Committee, I raised the further point that the differential treatment by the law towards civilian police and military police is also replicated in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and I am pleased that the right reverend Prelate has updated his amendments to reflect this. It is particularly welcome that the Government have listened, realised that the right reverend Prelate has identified a lacuna in the law, and acted. When the Government do right, we, His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, will support them. As such, Amendments 44, 45 and 46 have the full support of these Benches.

Lord Katz (Labour)

My Lords, I will begin by addressing Amendment 8. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her views and contribution to this debate, and to the debate throughout Committee. I join her in thanking Aurora New Dawn and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for their invaluable work on this very important issue, which I think has aided all noble Lords’ consideration of it.

I will deal first with the issue of specialist stalking training. The service police are already trained to nationally recognised standards. The Defence Serious Crime Command maintains alignment with the College of Policing’s professionalising investigation programme, and our service police receive offence-specific training aligned with the College of Policing’s standards. We will build on these arrangements, with stalking-specific training for not only service police but front-line personnel. This will enable personnel to recognise stalking behaviours, understand escalation and risk, and apply and enforce the new orders effectively.

Amendment 7A, from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, proposes a multi-agency stalking intervention programme —MASIP. A statutory MASIP model would not be practical in the service context. Cases may involve different jurisdictions across the UK and overseas, where local provision and responsibilities vary. Prescribing a single programme in legislation could constrain the flexibility needed to assemble the right partners around each case, leading to duplication of existing safeguarding arrangements and uncertainty over accountability. However, we recognise the importance of multi-agency working and information sharing. Our violence against women and girls taskforce will draw on expertise from across government and the wider VAWG sector to connect multi-disciplinary networks, and it will work closely with the Victim Witness Care Unit. Together, they will deliver risk management and victim protection.

Turning to Amendment 9, the Bill already provides continuity of protection. A service stalking protection order will automatically convert into a civilian stalking protection order when the person ceases to be subject to service law or service discipline, removing the need for a new order. That legal continuity is supported by existing operational arrangements. The Defence Serious Crime Command’s public protection unit can notify civilian forces when an order is imposed. Service police can also share information through public protection notices, national policing systems, and direct liaison with civilian public protection units and the service police’s 24-hour operations room. These mechanisms ensure that responsibility for enforcement can pass between jurisdictions without interrupting protection. Training, referrals and information sharing are better maintained through guidance and operational practice so they can be updated quickly as risks and policing practice evolve. We will continue to work with specialist organisations—the Military Court Service, the service police, the Armed Forces, and civilian partners—to design and implement effective training, guidance and support to victims across the defence establishment.

The Government recognise the concerns raised about the operation of these orders, and the intention behind proposed new Clause 7B, which would require annual reports on progress on addressing stalking in the Armed Forces. To reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, the Government will commit to update Parliament on the effectiveness of service stalking protection orders 12 months after the provisions have been commenced.

Turning to Amendment 10 and the victims’ code, all victims within the service justice system are entitled to support under the code for victims in the service justice system should they choose to receive it, irrespective of the nature of the offence committed against them. This includes victims of sexual offences and domestic abuse, where specialist support is available. The code for victims in the service justice system provides parity with the statutory rights for victims in England and Wales. It will contain the same key principles within legislation, set out in Clause 11, and the same 12 rights to ensure that victims of service offences and civilian victims receive equivalent standards, protections and entitlements.

If a service person is a victim whose case is being investigated by the civilian criminal justice system, defence policy gives personnel the right to comprehensive welfare support, including specialist welfare, delivered by trained staff where necessary, regardless of the civilian criminal justice system outcome. The Victim Witness Care Unit is well placed to support those who are dealt with in the service justice system by providing information and updates as the case progresses, through dedicated victim liaison officers—but it does not provide welfare support. Extending the remit of the Victim Witness Care Unit to victims in the criminal justice system would not materially change the services provided to such victims.

Government Amendments 11 to 15 simply give effect to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendation that the code for victims in the service justice system receive the same level of parliamentary scrutiny as the civilian code for victims in England and Wales. I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the Opposition Front Bench recognise this as progress.

Turning to government Amendments 44, 45 and 46, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich for raising this important issue in Committee. The Government welcome the intent of these proposals—indeed, I believe they are welcome across your Lordships’ House—and agree that they will have a positive impact and continue to provide the necessary and important protections for our service police. As a result, the Government have tabled the following amendments.

Amendment 44 amends the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 to list the service police as emergency workers within Section 3. Additionally, it ensures consistency by including the service police in the equivalent legislation in Scotland: the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005. This will provide prosecutors with an additional offence to consider, as appropriate, where incidents of assault on service police are reported. Subsequently, Section 68 of the Sentencing Act 2020 is amended to include service police. This again defines emergency workers for the purposes of this Act, where Section 67 requires courts to treat offences committed against emergency workers as an aggravating factor that increases the seriousness of that crime.

Amendment 45 applies Section 90 of the Police Act 1996 to members of the service police forces and provides that, in its application to service police, Section 90 has effect throughout England and Wales and Scotland. For Northern Ireland, Amendment 46 applies Section 67 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 to members of the service police. Taken together, these provisions mean that the relevant impersonation offences will apply in each of the three UK legal jurisdictions.

I hope this provides the necessary reassurances to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, and so I hope he feels able not to press his amendments and support those the Government have brought forward to address his concerns. I also hope that my previous comments gave enough assurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, so that she will not press hers.

Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)

I am grateful to the Minister for his response on these details. Without taking any time at all, I just say that progress has been made but I am not quite sure yet that we have the parity the Minister spoke about at the Dispatch Box between the civilian system for supporting victims and stalking victims separately. But it is improving, and for that I am grateful.

We certainly heard concern from Aurora New Dawn and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust about people moving from the military environment into the civilian environment, and about whether protection orders and other things would move swiftly. Actually, if that is going to happen, and if the one thing the amendments and these two organisations have done is to ensure a smooth transfer, that will also be a win. The victims’ code being written into law is extremely helpful for the military side as well. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 7A withdrawn.

Amendment 7B not moved.

Schedule 3: Protection from domestic abuse and stalking

Amendments 8 and 9 not moved.

Clause 11: Victims of service offences

Amendment 10 not moved.

Amendments 11 to 15

Amendment 16

Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I have re-laid my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford’s amendment from Committee, because he is still recuperating from his surgery a few weeks ago. We miss him and hope to see him back here very soon.

My noble friend is the president of the Association of Military Court Advocates and has repeatedly raised in your Lordships’ House the arrangements for sentencing in a court martial. At Second Reading, he said:

“In this country, the sentence is determined by the board sitting with a judge advocate, who advises the members on the law and the scale of sentence recommended by the Sentencing Council for a particular offence. In the event of an equality of votes among the members of the board, the judge advocate has a casting vote. I have argued in the last two Armed Forces Bills that, in the modern era, the judge advocate in the UK system should sentence alone, on the basis that the exercise of sentencing today is highly technical and beyond the competence and experience of members of the board who, unlike magistrates, have no training and have probably never been in court before and are unlikely to be there again”.—[Official Report, 6/7/26; col. 66.]

In Committee, I referred to my noble friend’s arguments on this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, responded to me by saying:

“The judge advocate is of course the expert on sentencing. It is true that any sentence passed by the court martial must be determined by a majority vote, meaning that the judge advocate’s voice could, theoretically, be outweighed. However, the judge advocate will give the board the legal framework, identify the relevant sentencing guidelines and set the proper parameters within which the sentence must be considered. Failure to have regard to those guidelines and parameters opens the way to an appeal in the Court Martial Appeal Court”.

He added:

“It is also important to remember that, while military experience informs sentencing, it does not displace the legal principles governing it. Any mitigation advanced on behalf of an offender—whether arising from previous operational service, commendations, awards or personal circumstances—must be assessed within the sentencing framework directed by the judge advocate and in accordance with applicable sentencing guidelines. To be clear, board members are not free to substitute personal views of military merit for the lawful sentencing exercise, and any sentence that failed properly to reflect the relevant legal principles would be liable to appeal”.—[Official Report, 2/9/26; cols. 228-229.]

The problem is that those two paragraphs contradict each other. If the judge advocate advises the other members of the panel to go in one direction, and they choose not to, the judge advocate’s vote is powerless against the majority. Arguing that any such decision could then be liable to appeal demonstrates exactly the argument that the judge advocate is the expert. Can the Minister say whether any data has been collected on the reason for any appeals in a court martial since 2011 so that we can see whether this is actually an issue and not just a matter of principle? As my noble friend Lord Thomas says, this is important and should be considered.

If there are any examples, how many relate to a majority decision made against the advice of the judge advocate? That is why Amendment 16 proposes that the judge advocate should make the decision alone. While we will not make progress on this today, my noble friend is undoubtedly an expert in this area; his argument is effective and he aims to strengthen the court martial. I suspect we may return to this in future. I beg to move.

Lord Katz (Labour)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for moving Amendment 16 on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. I join her in wishing him a very speedy recuperation; we all join her in hoping to see him back in his place as soon as possible.

As the Government set out in Committee—which I will not quote as extensively as the noble Baroness did—the judge advocate and the service members of the board discussing and deciding on sentence together is not an anomaly or a weakness of the court martial; it is one of its strengths. I acknowledge the noble Lord’s concerns that lay board members have not had the training in and exposure to matters of sentencing that judge advocates and magistrates have had, while the board members exercise unrestricted sentencing powers. The judge advocate, in any case, is the expert on sentencing, as my noble friend Lord Coaker said in Committee. They give the board the legal framework, identify the relevant sentencing guidelines and set the proper parameters within which the sentence must be considered.

The discussions of the board, like the deliberations of a Crown Court jury, are confidential and should never be disclosed or discussed outside the board itself. No formal records are kept of individual views expressed during board deliberations. Failure to have regard to the relevant guidelines and parameters in sentencing would open the way to appeal in the Court Martial Appeal Court. In response to the noble Baroness’s question, in 2025, 20 appeal notifications were submitted to the Court Martial Appeal Court; 12 were related to the conviction, seven to the sentence and one to both conviction and sentence. These eight are just over 3% of all the court martial sentences in 2025. No information is recorded about whether a majority decision was made against the advice of a judge advocate for the reasons I have already set out.

This amendment would reduce the board’s role from one of equal participation to one of consultation only. As such, the board’s understanding of modern service life, operational pressures, values and standards, and current military capability and technology could be consulted but ultimately rejected. The current position, whereby the judge advocate and the military members of the board discuss and decide the sentence together, is one of the strengths of the court martial system. The Government contend that the balance is the right one. The judge advocate provides the legal expertise and safeguards, and the lay board members provide current military experience and judgment. The recent Court Martial Appeal Court judgment in the case of R v Barton-Kennedy acknowledged the value of this collective military expertise in applying sentencing guidance to reach the appropriate sentence.

I hope I have provided at least some assurance to the noble Baroness and, in absentia, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. I suspect from her comments that we may revisit this at a future date. For the meantime, I hope that she is content to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I am very grateful for the Minister’s response; it was very similar to that of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in Committee, which is perhaps not a surprise. If my noble friend Lord Thomas were in his seat, I think he would say that it matched the responses that he has had over nearly 15 years of raising this issue, in relation not just to this Bill but a number of regulations. I know he feels passionately about this as a matter of principle, and I think we will try to find another vehicle by which we can take this forward. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 16 withdrawn.

Clause 32: Transfers between regular and reserve forces

Amendment 17

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

Government Amendments 17 to 21 are consequential on Clause 32. They do not alter existing policy but update Section 13 of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 to reflect the direct transfer arrangements in primary legislation. This will preserve the existing position that ex-regulars who leave the volunteer reserves before completing any remaining compulsory reserve liability will revert to the ex-regular reserve for the balance of that period.

Amendments 19 to 21 protect the choice of those who have chosen not to accept the changes to terms and conditions of service introduced by the Armed Forces Bill. Without these amendments, an individual who subsequently leaves the volunteer reserves could be automatically brought back into the new arrangements. These provisions ensure that their original decision is respected and preserved in legislation, unless they choose otherwise. While it is right that we introduce these measures to strengthen defence readiness and improve our access to trained personnel, it is equally right that we provide service personnel with a clear choice. These amendments strike that balance, enhancing readiness while safeguarding individual decision-making. I beg to move.

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative)

My Lords, I have countersigned my noble friend Lord Harlech’s Amendment 23, about the right to time off for reservists. I hope I do him some justice by talking to his amendment.

I speak as an employer of a very small charity. The amendment would apply only to businesses with 50 or more employees, giving those employees a right of up to 10 days of unpaid leave per year to fulfil specific requirements of a reservist. These requirements are outlined by Section 22 of the Reserve Forces Act 1996, and, importantly, they include an annual period of continuous training. The amendment would also include the right to time off for a course of instruction leading to promotion or the award of a qualification recognised by the Defence Council. You would be covered by the amendment only if you had been an employee for not less than 26 weeks, so it would not be a day-one entitlement. There must be reasonable and written notice for the employer and, importantly, because we all know how these things work, if the training is cancelled or curtailed then the employer can get the days back—courses and camps are sometimes moved, as we know.

In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was concerned that this would create an additional workforce, administrative or operational pressure for employers and that that might be particularly significant where employers rely on specialist skills or shift patterns. I employ people with specific clinical skills, who are booked up to six weeks in advance to provide appointments for children and adults with cerebral palsy. I come across these issues when staff are called up for things such as jury duty. There is a mechanism whereby people can say, “I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t make the date that I’ve been called up for”, and so there is an element of toing and froing that suits the employee, the public duty and the employer.

As an employer, I was minded to look up what public duties I need to statutorily give employees time off for, regardless of whether I employ 50 employees or not. I noticed that all employees must be allowed to take time off for jury service, which is fine, but what qualifies as other reasonable time off includes being a magistrate, councillor or school governor; being a member of any statutory tribunal, managing or governing body of an education establishment, health authority, school council or board in Scotland, the Environment Agency or the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, a prison independent monitoring board, and Scottish Water or a water customer consultation panel; and being a trade union member for trade union duties. I am slightly surprised, therefore, that members of the Reserve Forces are not already able to request time off.

I need to declare an interest, because this is another debate, and my daughter is a serving member of the reservists. This comes back to the previous date about operational readiness. The reason the Reserve Forces Act states a specific training time, and particularly the annual continuous time off, is to ensure operational readiness. At the moment, employees in the reserves have certain protections only if they are called up for service, not for their routine readiness. I know that there are continuous problems for people in trying to juggle the needs of their employer with the needs of their voluntary—I note that it is voluntary—commitment to be a reservist. In current times, with our focus on operational readiness, we should be making it as easy as possible for the reservists to be encouraged to continue with their service year after year and, frankly, putting them on a par with members of Scottish Water or the water customer consultation panel and saying that they should be allowed the right to reasonable time off.

The amendment would in no way jeopardise the existing schemes for employers—the voluntary commitment that various businesses sign up to, whether gold or silver. To be frank, there are not enough businesses signed up to gold and silver schemes in the protection of the Armed Forces covenant. I completely support these routes to promote genuine practical voluntary support from employers. At the end of the day, if we are trying to encourage the operational readiness of our Reserve Forces, these modest amendments—as we always call them—would smooth the path of reservists to be able to keep up their commitment. I urge the Government to give it full consideration.

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, as in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, have brought forward important amendments. They may not be the largest amendments, but we rely on the reserves and in repeated SDRs we have seen the importance of our reserves.

I have a question for the Minister. Amendment 24 talks about detriment on the grounds of membership of the Reserve Forces. In theory, there should not be any detriment to being in the reserves, but could the Minister explain to the House whether His Majesty’s Government feel that the amendment is unnecessary because sufficient legislation is in place to protect the rights of the reserves? In particular, do the Government feel that, by bringing the whole of government within the purview of the Armed Forces covenant, for example, we have begun to change the dynamics, or do we actually need to push further on the reserves? It is clearly important that just as we do not leave out people in civil living accommodation from the rights that everybody else enjoys, we should not leave members of the reserves out of the rights that would be extended to those in the regular services.

From these Benches, we are broadly supportive of these amendments and would very much like to understand whether His Majesty’s Government feel that there are sufficient safeguards in place for the reserves.

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Goldie and I have tabled Amendment 25 to test the merits of a tax-free reserve service policy, as proposed by my honourable friend James Cartlidge, the shadow Secretary of State for Defence in the other place. The purpose of such a policy is to completely remove income tax from the first 30 days of reserve service in any one year. This reflects the Conservative Party’s respect for the value of reserve service. For a private on an annual non-reserve salary of £30,000, this would save them £380 a year. For a corporal on a non-reserve salary of £35,000, this would save them £570. For a lieutenant on £50,000, this would save them £1,087 a year. This would mean that all reservists would get to keep more of their hard-earned money while offering our country their commitment and support.

Charlie Munger, of Berkshire Hathaway renown, famously said:

“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome”.

Currently, the incentives to join and remain in the reserves are nowhere near as pronounced as they ought to be. If we are serious about increasing the size of the Reserve Forces, as my party certainly is, then we must fix and enhance these incentives. The outcome would definitely be positive. Indeed, as the strategic defence review committed to increasing the size of the active reserves by 20%, should the Government not be further considering improving the financial offer to reservists?

On the amendments from my noble friend Lord Harlech, I appreciate that these attempt to target some of the incentives, particularly relating to the reservists’ employers. However, in my opinion, we should be targeting the financial incentives, with costs that can be borne responsibly by the state, which could, for example, be funded by reinstating a two-child benefit cap. This is surely preferable to a policy that increases costs on businesses.

Each of my noble friend’s amendments might be acceptable on their own, and in a more favourable economic environment we might be inclined to support them. However, with the tax burden at a post-war high, the Employment Rights Act creating more red tape and the likelihood of further tax raises in the upcoming Budget, businesses—particularly SMEs—are already buckling under the cumulative pressure of life under a Labour Government, as evidenced by a further reduction in vacancy reported this very morning by the ONS. Given this, while respecting the invaluable role that the Reserve Forces fulfil, I think we should be doing everything possible to reduce the burden on businesses.

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

My Lords, I am grateful to those who have contributed to the debate on this group. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, for his amendment, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, for introducing the amendment and making its case. I listened with care and I will try to address a couple of her points as we go through. In fact, to that end, the MoD, as the noble Baroness acknowledged, works closely with employers to promote the benefits of reservists to companies, and many actively recognise this; hence, as was mentioned, the silver and gold schemes. My noble friend Lord Coaker went into more detail, so I will just leave that there, but they have their place, without doubt.

More than 9,000 companies are part of the employee recognition scheme, which requires employers to have reserve-positive policies in their workplace. We also have a number of existing statutory safeguards in place to ensure that reserves are protected when we mobilise them. We are not complacent: as global instability increases and the importance of our Reserve Forces continues to grow, we are committed to improving reservists’ readiness. However, we believe this must be done in partnership with employers and industry, whose ongoing support remains vital to the future success of the reserves. While I accept that some businesses, such as that of the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, would welcome this amendment, I take the point of the noble Earl, Lord Minto, that there are problems with potentially increasing costs on business as well. For that reason, we do not believe that these amendments strike the right balance.

To address the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, the Government remain committed to ensuring that reservists are supported and not unfairly disadvantaged. The concern is not with the principle of supporting reservists, but with whether the amendments are the right legal mechanism. The Government believe that employer engagement, covenant commitments—as was mentioned—and targeted support are more appropriate and proportionate than creating a broad new employment status. We feel that the amendment could create uncertainty for employers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, causing them to worry that they may make ordinary workplace decisions more vulnerable to tribunal claims, even where decisions are based on legitimate operational compliance requirements. That could discourage open discussion about reserve commitments, undermining the partnership approach between defence employers and reserves.

Amendment 25 would compel the Secretary of State to undertake a review into tax-free payments for the first 30 days of a reservist’s service each year. While I recognise the intent behind it, I do not consider a statutory review necessary. The Government keep pay and conditions under continuous review, and reservists already benefit from a generous package of support, including a tax-free annual bounty of up to £2,391. Importantly, the Government believe that making reserve pay tax-free would create a significant disparity with our regular personnel. Those of us—and there are perhaps a couple in this Chamber—who remember Pay 2000, which introduced discrepancies and differential pay, and the effect that it had on the Royal Navy, in particular, would, I think, want me to make this point emphatically. We do not want to create a disparity between regular and reserve personnel pay and conditions in this way. I do, however, share the noble Baroness’s commitment to improving reserve recruitment. Our approach to recruitment and retention is to improve the offer.

Amendment 17 agreed.

Amendment 18

Amendments 19 to 21

Amendment 22

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

My Lords, the House will not be surprised that my noble friend Lady Goldie and I have re-tabled our amendments from Committee to remove Clause 39 and Schedule 6 from the Bill. As a short reminder, these provisions abolish the reserve forces and cadets associations as currently constituted and replace them with a single non-departmental public body—a quango—with a far greater degree of control exercised directly by the Ministry of Defence.

I was buoyed by the widespread support from around the House that this amendment received in Committee, in particular from the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Craig of Radley and Lord Stirrup; the noble Lords, Lord Dannatt, Lord Moore of Etchingham and Lord Faulks; and my noble friends Lord Swire, Lord Howe, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, and, of course, Lord De Mauley. May I also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, that her support and that of her party are extremely welcome? I even detected a hint of scepticism about the Government’s proposal from their own Benches, and I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, for his intervention. This support from diverse corners was indeed indicative of both how strongly noble Lords felt about the value of reserves and cadet organisations and their commitment to the value of a of level of self-determination.

It is clear from the strength of feeling in the House that the Government have got this wrong. I am in no doubt that the Minister has only good intentions, but I am afraid that he is pursuing, whether at his own behest or that of the Civil Service, a course of action which will change the RFCAs for the worse and risks causing lasting damage to a system that works so well. The source of my ire is the Government’s insistence that they must seize control over the associations for the sake of accountability. I am fully aware that the Sullivan review identified weaknesses in the governance of the RFCAs, but an enormous amount of work has already been done to rectify those problems; yet the Government still intend to pursue reorganisation. It is as if the MoD is searching for a problem to justify its desire to exercise ultimate control over the associations.

The Government speak of accountability, but accountability to whom? Is it the accountability of the membership of the associations that the Government are concerned about? Is it for those volunteers, cadet leaders, reservists and staff who make the RFCAs the enormous success that they are—or is it to further the MoD’s interests that the Government seek these reforms? If anyone thinks that creating yet another quango is going to improve accountability, either to those who really matter—the reserves, the cadets and the membership —or, indeed, to the Government themselves, I fear they may have spent the last few decades with their head buried fairly deep in the sand.

If it is financial probity and governance that the Government are concerned about, they have little to fear from retaining the current arrangements. For example—this is quite a good example—the Yorkshire and Humberside association managed to negotiate the purchase of a new location for York Officer Training Corps for £2.85 million, down from the quoted price of £3 million. By contrast, the anticipated cost for the Ministry of Defence’s plan for the relocation was £10 million. Because of the local connections and autonomy of the current arrangements, the Yorkshire and Humberside RFCA was able to save the public purse £7 million. The Government say they are worried about financial responsibility and accountability, but, as this simple example demonstrates, the RFCAs are clearly more responsible and accountable than the Ministry of Defence could be. I know if I was still in the commercial sector who I would want on my side in the negotiation.

However, I appreciate the efforts that the Minister has gone to in trying to address some of the issues raised by my noble friend Lord De Mauley in Committee. Particularly welcome is Amendment 39, which places the role of the lord-lieutenant into primary legislation, as opposed to the Government’s previous position of leaving governance arrangements solely to secondary legislation.

Amendment 27 is also welcome as it permits the chairs of regional councils to sit as representative members on the national RFCA board. However, it is evident that while the Government have made some movement, they still intend to seize greater control over the associations through structural means.

Of particular concern is the proposed new structure of the board. Amendment 26 increases the number of non-executive members from five to 10, and Amendment 28 states that the number of non-executive members must be greater than the number of executive and representative members combined. This definition is almost worth repeating, it is so unusual—but do not worry; I shall not.

The effect of this government amendment will be to place a cap on the number of representatives of the regional councils that could sit on the national board, as the number of representatives and executive members combined could not be more than the number of MoD-appointed non-executive directors. This could lead to a situation where there are no representative members appointed to the board at all. Surely that cannot be right.

For example, if the MoD appointed four non-executive members, which for an organisation of this size would be a pretty standard number, there would be room for only one representative, since there are approximately three executive members on the board, including the chief executive officer. Although the MoD could now theoretically appoint up to 10 non-executive members and therefore appoint all six of the permitted representatives, this would create a board of 20 people, which, as anybody who has sat on corporate boards of almost any size will tell you, is ludicrous. For comparison, the average size of the board of a FTSE 100 company is 9.9 directors. In fact, it would be so impractical that the MoD would never even countenance it. In short, the Government would, through Amendment 28, guarantee complete MoD control over the board and place what I believe to be an unacceptable restriction on the representation of the membership of the RFCAs. In this regard, this concession is not actually a concession at all.

The nub of the issue is this. Governance and accountability issues were identified, and those problems were fixed, but the Civil Service will not be satisfied until it exercises complete control over the RFCAs. It can dress this up in as much bureaucratic Newspeak as it wishes, but the fact remains that it is a wholly unnecessary and ultimately damaging reform. For that reason, Clause 39 and Schedule 6 should be struck from the Bill. I beg to move.

Lord de Mauley (Conservative)

My Lords, I was sorry to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was unwell, and I was very grateful to him for his letter of 13 October in which he set out a number of government amendments to the Bill, including several on the RFCA element in Clause 39 and Schedule 6. I should mention my interest as chairman of the Council of Reserve Forces and Cadets Associations.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in particular, in his absence, as did my noble friend Lord Minto, for agreeing to bring the lords-lieutenant back into primary legislation and for the establishment of a national council. He also said that arrangements would be made for up to six regional council chairs to be appointed as members of the RFCA board and that they would be able to participate and vote, maintaining the historic links between defence and the regions. I am grateful that they will be able to participate fully and to vote. My issue is with the little words “up to” in the context of the number of regional chairs to be appointed to the board.

My noble friend Lord Minto referred to the importance of having six regional chairs out of the total of 13 regions represented on the board to represent the nationwide RFCAs. That is because it would allow representation of each of the devolved Administrations—Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales—and would provide three representatives for England. That is three out of its nine regional chairs, while Northern Ireland and Wales each would have its only chair permanently on the board, and Scotland would have one of its two. England is by far the most populous of the four countries, being home, according to Google, to 85% of the population of the United Kingdom, so it would be ridiculous to suggest that England should not have half of all the regional chair element of the board. That inevitably leads to a need for not fewer than six representatives of the regional chairs on the board.

The nub of the issue I have with the Government’s amendments, therefore—the Minister must not think me ungrateful, because I appreciate that they have come a long way—is in government Amendment 28, the effect of which is to make paragraph 2(2) of new Schedule 4A read: “The number of executive members and representative members must be less than the number of non-executive members”. My noble friend Lord Minto has explained how the MoD could arrange that, in reality, therefore, no representative members sit on the board.

Although the Government have allowed themselves through Amendment 26 to appoint up to 10 non-executives, this is discretionary and it seems to me unlikely to happen, both because it would create a large board, which I cannot think any of us would find very attractive, and because the Treasury would surely question payment to so many non-executives, because the Bill still insists that they be paid. Compounding this, new paragraph (4A) in government Amendment 39 says

“but there are to be no more than six representative members at any time”.

This has all come about because of a concern among officials that the regional chairs might somehow outvote the other board members and expose the organisation to unacceptable risk—something, of course, that none of us wants. There are, however, so many reasons why this is unthinkable. Of the RFCAs’ total annual spending of £120 million, for example, more than 95% is tied down in payments for leases, rent, rates, people costs, fixed contracts for IT, property maintenance and so on, and in projects for which the business cases have the approval of one of the single services. There is therefore literally no latitude for spending outside the set parameters. Furthermore, the chief executive being appointed by the department as the accounting officer can exercise his or her veto if any board member is to propose any inappropriate action, as set out in His Majesty’s Treasury’s own publication, Managing Public Money.

That brings me to what is perhaps an even more important point. Amendment 28, by suggesting that the executives, including the chief executive and the finance director, would gang up against the chairman and non-executives, is completely absurd. You would be placing your entire trust in the non-executives, who, albeit appointed through the OCPA process, are paid some but by no means all of their income by you, but you will not trust the executives, who are also appointed by you, who are even more heavily vetted, and who are entirely reliant on you for their pay packet. This could have arisen only out of the thought process of a mad conspiracy theorist. I would be keen to see the back of Amendment 28, while I warmly welcome Amendment 39A from my noble friends Lord Howe and Lord Minto.

Let us focus on the big picture. We are attempting either to create an effective NDPB or to strengthen further the current model, as in fact was suggested by the National Audit Office. In a national organisation which stretches from the outer isles, Shetland and Orkney, to Land’s End and the Channel Islands, one that embraces the rich regional heritage of the United Kingdom, why would not one wish for appropriate regional representation on the board to provide that vital link between national strategies and policies and their implementation at local level, rather than dancing on a pinhead about some theoretical perception of risk? To put that regional representation in doubt, as these government amendments do, flies in the face of Prime Minister Burnham’s stated aim to push power down to the regions of the UK.

Giving members the impression that they might have only minimal representation on the national board because it is not in accordance with Cabinet Office and Treasury guidelines, as it might create financial and government risk, is frankly nonsense. It is an insult to volunteers, who readily give up their time at no cost to the taxpayer because they understand the importance of the reserves and cadets to the national effort, to resilience and to defence of the homeland, and who wish to serve and support. They should be applauded, not treated as high-risk vigilantes.

Furthermore, there are plenty of checks and balances in the Treasury’s own guidance, Managing Public Money, chapter 3, and Defence Council letters of delegation to regional chairs, to ensure that board members carry out the duties assigned to them in accordance with government guidelines.

A further matter that I have not today pressed by way of amendment is my suggestion made in Committee that the detail of how the membership of the RFCA is to be selected should be set out in primary legislation. Can the Minister assure me that the draft regulation that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, showed us, which did set out the detail, will indeed be brought before Parliament in substantially the form we have been shown?

Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)

My Lords, I shall make a few brief comments on these amendments. I wish the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, well in his recovery, and hopefully he will be back here in the not too distant future. I always feel that I am a reasonably balanced person when looking at these aspects. Others may not agree, but most people will. I am always open to consideration of changes. Under normal circumstances, I would not contemplate supporting Amendment 22, which to me is almost a dead end that would bring us back to the status quo, but sometimes you have to have that knee-jerk reaction, particularly when you see what else is in this group of amendments.

The Bill is seriously short-changing a group of people who want to make and are making a contribution, and it will leave some areas disadvantaged. Either a region of England is not going to have the representation that we feel it deserves; or Northern Ireland, or, maybe, Scotland or Wales, will not have any representation whatever; or it could be all of those. I should have liked to see a much better proposal coming from government here that would have allowed me to support it, but unfortunately, I am put in the situation where I do not particularly like Amendment 22 but I feel, under the circumstances, that I will probably have to support it, because the Bill is not giving fair representation to the other regions. I ask the Government to look at this again, reconsider and give us something that I can support—otherwise, I will have to go with Amendment 22.

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative)

My Lords, I support Amendment 22. I should begin by apologising for not speaking on earlier stages of the Bill, and by declaring my interests. I am the honorary colonel of Outreach and I have also been asked to help interview the advisory assessment panel for the appointment of the chair of the reserve forces and cadets association.

I think we all recognise the value of the RFCA. This has been laid out well by others and I do not intend to repeat what has gone before. There is a well-used phrase, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, which I think applies here. As this involves the duties of a Lord Lieutenant, my first question is whether the Palace has been consulted on this reorganisation.

I do not propose to lay out all the arguments, as others have done so far more eloquently than I could. However, there is a real concern that this reorganisation will damage the voluntary ethos of the association. The proposed reorganisation will appoint non-military independent directors, and this will remove the incentives for military and ex-military volunteers to remain involved. They add so much to this organisation. Abolishing the 13 regional organisations cuts across the regional and local connections that are so important, as we have already heard from others.

Especially at this time when we are told to be war-ready, the RFCA has an incredibly valuable role to play. Please do not let us reorganise something that works perfectly well now. Let us leave it alone to continue its excellent work.

Lord Empey (UUP)

My Lords, like many other Members, I wish recovery to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. I never either convened or attended a ministerial meeting such as he convened before the Recess, with so many civil servants present. There were a few of us there. It was a mini-mass meeting. It was very kind of him to bring them along, and they were all there to answer all the different questions. But they also say that one of the first things a politician must learn is how to count. If we look at Amendments 26 and 28, it seems to me that we cannot count, because on the one hand, the Minister said “This is what I think we should do: we should open things up. We realise that we have to get regional representation”, but when this thing is dangled before us and we think “Ah, we’ve got a solution here”, Amendment 28 potentially takes it away. It is not specific that it would be taken away, but when you use the phrase in legislation we “may appoint”, that is the fundamental weakness.

I do not believe that it is impossible for the Minister to resolve that. I think it could easily be resolved by Third Reading and I hope it will be, because I think most people want the same outcome. We should not be arguing over this, because it is in our national interest. Let us not forget that we could have another Government using this legislation who would take a totally different view, and we have to look at the alternatives going forward.

There is a way to fix this. As the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, rightly said, we have nine regions. England has 85% of the national population. We cannot have every region represented. We know that. Otherwise, the board would be far too unwieldy and, as the noble Earl, Lord Minto, pointed out, big companies have 10 people max, and even our committees are limited to 11 or 12. We should not be asking people to “Don’t do as we do, do as we say”.

I appeal to the Minister to take this back. It can be resolved, I am quite sure. I do not see any threat. I do not think there is going to be a coup among the members of a board that will cause any distraction for the Government. We should all be on the same page here and let us hope it can be resolved.

Lord Dannatt (Crossbench)

My Lords, I support Amendment 22 and believe very firmly that Schedule 6 should be removed from this Bill. Frankly, if ever there was a solution looking for a problem, it is this. Noble Lords have pointed out the errors in it. I think the fundamental issue is moving away from the volunteer ethos. That is what underpins the reserve forces and cadets association. If we are to start moving to paid officials, it will seriously undermine the association and we will lose those volunteers almost immediately. Schedule 6 must be removed from this Bill. There are, in my view—and many other noble Lords share it—many issues that need to be sorted out in defence, particularly at this time of growing national crisis, but frankly, tinkering with the reserve forces and cadets association, its structure and organisation, is definitely not one of them.

Lord Houghton of Richmond (Crossbench)

I hesitate to knock in a nail that is almost invisibly out of sight, but I will. When I was vice-chief, I led the Cameron review on reserves, Future Reserves 2020. When I stood down as CDS, I became the president of the reserve forces and cadets association for three or four years. Those two roles and activities brought me a close understanding of and familiarity with the very localised and nuanced nature of reserve and cadet issues, and the remarkable and freely given service of prominent figures locally.

More recently, the latest strategic defence review has emphasised the need for a whole-of-society approach to national defence that fully involves local communities and civil societies in national resilience. As was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, more recently still, the Prime Minister’s barnstorming conference speech spoke of the need to rewire the UK system, to devolve responsibility by default, to empower every postcode, to champion stronger public control and to strip away unnecessary centralised regulation and overwatch. I wonder: has the Prime Minister read this Bill? Does he realise the degree to which it is going against every principle that he stated in this speech that rocked the nation?

The Bill establishes, or aspires to establish, an RFCA board—an NDPB that enjoys a permanent majority of funded non-executives. Under certain scenarios, the board construct can eliminate any local representation at all. I started to wonder whether this was an act of malfeasance—I had to check that in the dictionary—but I think it is actually a drafting cock-up, because the statement after one of the amendments completely inverts the purpose of the amendment. All I shall say, from my experience in the time I spent with the reserves, is, to requote the noble Baroness, “Do not fix what isn’t broken”. This is absolutely unnecessary, and we should vote to get rid of Clause 39.

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative)

My Lords, I shall speak briefly. I am confused by these amendments, so I would like the Minister to help me out; I hope that she will.

In Committee, I supported the removal of this clause because I felt that, as other noble Lords have said, the RFCAs are rooted in their communities. Although defence is reserved, many of these institutions and community organisations—be they employers, local government or whatever—are devolved matters. So my question for the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was: where is the input of the devolved nations in this new body? The noble Lord, Lord Empey, referred to that. I am going to get fed up with saying this in the Chamber, but Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are not just other regions of England, despite the Google population things; I take my noble friend’s point.

When I asked the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, he said to me, “They’re all part of the regulations. They’re in draft form at the moment, but I’ll share them”. I thank him very much for sharing them. I have gone through them. I had asked where the devolved nations were and how those devolved matters were being fed through to this new national board, but, in reading the draft regulations, I cannot in any way see where that happens. I was assured that these things will be sorted out by the regulations, but, at the moment, they are not. So I remain confused. I therefore support my noble friend’s Amendment 22 and hope that the Minister will make me not confused.

Lord Peach (Crossbench)

My Lords, I must declare two interests to make one very simple point: I am the current president of the reserves and cadets—I was appointed instead of a former field-marshal, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton—and I currently sit on your Lordships’ National Resilience Committee.

My point is a simple one: we need national resilience more than ever. We get that national resilience by connecting ourselves to our own society. That connection comes through His Majesty to His Majesty’s lords-lieutenant. In the case of mobilisation, that falls to the reserve forces and cadets associations. When we have a moment of serious conflict, we need our reserve forces. They are what saved us in two world wars. We need them again, and we need to grow them. So the simple message is: we need to do all we can to make them as strong as possible as part our national resilience.

Lord Faulks (Non-affiliated)

My Lords, I spoke in Committee, and I am not going to repeat what I said then. I have one simple point to make: I wondered whether there was some deep and mysterious legal reason for the Government’s desire to reorganise the reserves, but I was reassured in no uncertain terms by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, that there is no legal reason for this move. So it follows that this is a question of political choice. It is a very bad choice.

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, stole my thunder right at the start of this group of amendments when he thanked me and my Benches for the support we were giving on the reserve forces and cadets associations. By the standards of this Bill, this has been a long debate, so I do not intend to detain the House for more than two or three sentences.

I can understand why the noble Earl, Lord Minto, was slightly confused about Clause 39 because, in the original version of the Bill, it is Clause 38. I spent a bit of time trying to work out what we were talking about, and then I discovered that its numbering had changed. However, its content has not changed, and it has not become any better.

I suggest that the particularly pernicious bit is in not Clause 39 but Schedule 6, to which it refers; that is where most of the really serious issues are. I have not heard anyone in the Chamber say that they see a good reason for abolishing the current situation. We have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that there is no legal reason to do so, and there is clearly no military reason to do so. In terms of our national security and national resilience, there seems to be no desirability to do so, either. For those reasons, we on these Benches will support Amendment 22.

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

My Lords, as I mentioned in my opening comments, I have been struck by the support for this amendment from all sides of the Chamber; it is much appreciated. The Minister, who has herself given distinguished service to this country in the RAF, cannot be blind to or unmoved by the strength of feeling in this House on this issue and to why your Lordships feel so strongly. The Minister is an able and respected advocate for our Armed Forces, so I ask her to convey to the department the message she has heard so forcefully today. I very much hope—

Lord Katz (Labour)

I apologise, but the sequencing means that we should probably hear the Minister’s response to the contributions made in the debate. The noble Earl opened the debate as this is his amendment.

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

It is nice to be looked after. I thank noble Lords, noble and gallant Lords and noble Baronesses for their contributions; I have listened to them carefully, as I did in previous stages of the Bill. I will do my best to answer the points that have been made.

First, most importantly, this debate is not about whether the RFCAs should continue. They should, and this Government are fully committed to their future. There is no conspiracy. The question is whether an organisation entering its second century should continue to operate through the Government’s arrangements, which were designed for 1908, or through a model that is fit for the defence challenges of the 2030s and beyond. We know that the RFCAs support our reserve and cadet forces, steward a substantial estate and oversee significant public expenditure; I will come back to this point. Those responsibilities have grown significantly, but the governance framework has not kept pace.

A proud history is a reason to preserve and modernise the RFCAs; it is not a reason to exempt them from change. Part of my PhD was on the establishment of the first Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadrons, which are of note because, although the first two were created in London, the next ones were created in Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh; I suggest that that was very regional for an early Royal Air Force.

The case for reform rests squarely on the findings of three reviews, and I make this point because there have been quite a lot of questions from across your Lordships’ House on the need for this measure. The reviews identified fragmented accountability, inconsistent governance arrangements and an absence of clear responsibility for public money. Those findings were not a criticism of the dedicated people who serve the RFCAs but a critique of the structure within which they have to operate. So the NDPB is not the objective—it is the solution. It creates a single accountable organisation, a clear chain of responsibility, independent oversight and proper stewardship of public funds, as the Government should ensure happens. Without governance reform, the system cannot be fixed and secured for the future.

The alternative cannot be the status quo. Many have made the case for that. As the Minister, my noble friend Lord Coaker, set out, the status quo has already been judged to be inadequate by three public reviews. Also, the NDPB protects rather than threatens the RFCA model, because with these amendments we are committed to preserving regional footprint, local knowledge, community engagement and the volunteer ethos that have always been its greatest strengths.

As I have already alluded to, this move to an NDPB is not a new proposal of this Government. The decision to pursue this model was taken under the previous Government, following the Sullivan review. Work to implement it has been under way for a number of years. The Opposition, when in government, set out in this House that the existing arrangements created a situation where decisions on public money could be taken by individuals who were not accountable to the Ministry of Defence’s Permanent Secretary. On a specific point put by the noble Earl, Lord Minto, on the RFCA for Yorkshire and the Humber, I assure him that this situation would not change. It is not to do with the NDPB. The Government agree with the Opposition’s position under the Sullivan review. Indeed, successive RFCA annual reports reflect an expectation that the organisation would transfer to an NDPB and a commitment to working with defence to make that transition successful.

The 2020-21 RFCA annual report stated that the transition to an NDPB is one that “we should embrace”, confident that the critical role of regional membership would be reflected in the future governance structure. This reform is not a rejection of the RFCAs’ proud history but how we ensure their continued success in the decades ahead. This is not change for its own sake, as suggested in several comments in the debate, but governance reform required to preserve the RFCAs’ strengths, address weaknesses that successive reviews have identified and ensure that the organisation remains fit for the future.

Throughout the passage of the Bill, considerable attention has rightly been given to the future of the reserve forces and cadets associations, and to how the strengths of the existing regional structure can be preserved. I pay tribute to the noble Earl, Lord Minto, for listing the contributions; I was going to list some of them myself and was busy ticking them off as he went through them. I am pretty sure that he caught everybody, but I acknowledge how much interest there has been in your Lordships’ House on this issue. I sat on these Benches in Committee and have read through all the comments, which I take firmly to heart.

A consistent theme has emerged in discussions with the RFCAs, Members of this House and other stakeholders: the importance of ensuring that strong regional voices continue to play a meaningful role within the future organisation. The Government get this. The amendments before the House respond to those concerns. Their central purpose is to ensure that the future RFCAs retain a strong regional dimension and continue to benefit from the local knowledge, community connections and experience. On the points raised by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, the amendments were intended to address these points. I take all his points, but the movement that my noble friend Lord Coaker has broached over the last few weeks is to do as much as possible to address the concerns raised.

I turn to the amendments. They strengthen provision for regional councils by placing greater clarity in the legislation about their leadership and composition. They ensure that each regional council will have its own chair and formal arrangements for the appointment of presidents and vice-presidents. In doing so, the amendments recognise the long-standing and important role that those on the ground have played in support of the work of the RFCAs. As several noble Lords have raised, lords-lieutenant have for generations provided a valued link between defence, civic society and local communities across every part of the United Kingdom. The amendments therefore provide for the president of a regional council to be an appropriate lord-lieutenant wherever one is available to serve in that capacity.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, made a point about the importance of our reserves being as strong as possible as part of national resilience. I continue to support the work that the noble and gallant Lord is doing in his committee and in his other endeavours. I hope that we will continue to work together on that important point. The Reserve Forces are central, as the noble and gallant Lord pointed out, and have been in previous conflicts.

Secondly, the amendments allow for a number of regional council chairs to become representative members of the RFCA, ensuring that regional perspectives can be brought into discussions at the national level. It may be helpful to address how those arrangements will be implemented in practice. The Government’s intention is that all regional councils should continue to have a strong voice, including through the representative member arrangements. However, it will be important to ensure that the board is established in a way that maintains the governance safeguards expected of a modern public body, including a majority of non-executive members.

I will briefly address a few point in this area. The noble Lord, Lord Elliott, raised representation from Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland representative will be one of six regional chairs, and the devolved nations will be represented, to respond to the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. I am assured that Amendment 40 was devised to ensure that this takes place.

To go back to the make-up of the board, as a consequence, the appointment of representative members —as in regional representatives—may need to proceed alongside the recruitment of non-executive directors as the new body is established. In practice, this may mean building up the number of representative members incrementally during the transition period rather than appointing all representative members on day 1.

Amendment 39A refers to

“no more than six”,

and so no fewer than six. On this magic number, the RFCA could not operate as a full board until the six regional chairs and required NEDs were appointed if the amendment were passed. That approach is not intended to diminish regional representation, rather it is the practical consequence of establishing the new organisation on a sound governance footing from the outset. I would like to convince the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, that I am not a mad conspiracy theorist—though clearly people never know that they are, so perhaps that needs looking at. I will take other people’s advice.

The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, brought up the payment issue, which I know that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, covered. He made the point that, at the top of voluntary organisations all around the country, there are people, including board members, who are remunerated. We would not expect them to be able to do that job of work without remuneration. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is extremely adamant on that point and would want me to revisit it briefly.

The Government’s objective remains clear: to ensure that strong regional voices are represented within the future RFCA while maintaining the independent oversight and accountability arrangements that Parliament would rightly expect of a national body.

Thirdly, the amendments establish a national council, bringing together the chairs of the regional councils. I have covered this point to some extent. The intention is to create a formal forum through which regional experience, advice and expertise can inform the work of the organisation and help maintain strong links between the centre and the regions. There is a recognition in the amendments that regional councils have long played an important role in providing advice and assistance on matters affecting their local areas. Accordingly, provision is made for regulations to confer appropriate advisory functions on regional councils and, where appropriate, on the national council.

These amendments demonstrate that modernisation need not come at the expense of tradition—and nor, I can reassure your Lordships’ House, would I wish to see that. They preserve the regional identity, local relationships and civic leadership that have long underpinned the success of the RFCAs, as we have debated in earlier stages of the Bill, while supporting clearer accountability and stronger governance.

I am confident that these amendments therefore strike the right balance between maintaining valued local connections and ensuring an effective and accountable organisation for the future. I appreciate all the comments that have been made, but I hope that these amendments will reassure noble Lords, the RFCAs and their many supporters that the future organisation will continue to draw strength from the regions, and the Government are firmly committed to that principle. It serves us well while being equipped to meet the challenges and opportunities of the years ahead.

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

My Lords, first, allow me to apologise for getting carried away earlier. I will just carry on. I humbly ask the noble Baroness, as an able and respected advocate for our Armed Forces, to convey the message that she has heard so forcefully today from this House back to the department. I very much hope that the Government realise the error of their ways and that, should the House decide to remove Clause 39 and Schedule 6 from the Bill today, they do not seek to continue with this folly when the Bill goes back to the other place.

The course of action the Government are pursuing here is not far off using a wrecking ball as some form of construction tool. They appear to want to abolish the voluntary ethos of the reserves and cadets, sweep away their independence and seize control of the associations that have done so much for our cadets and reserves over many generations, to this nation’s abiding gratitude. I hesitate to leave your Lordships with a warning, but good things, once gone, seldom return. The reserve forces and cadets associations are, as we have heard almost throughout today, undoubtedly a very good thing indeed. We would be doing our nation a great disservice if we ended up disbanding them. I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Ayes 243, Noes 168.

Lord Beith (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I cannot call Amendment 39A, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, because it is an amendment to something that the Government have not moved.

Amendment 39A not moved.

Amendments 40 to 42 not moved.

Amendment 43

Amendments 44 to 46

Amendment 49

Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his letter dated 25 September and for the meeting that I, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and the Centre for Military Justice had with him and his officials between Committee and Report.

I have retabled Amendment 49 from Committee following those discussions, because there remain some key issues that are important to us, and I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus, will be able to help by providing some answers. In Committee, a number of noble Lords asked the Minister to clarify how it was possible for the US Air Force to ask UK police officers to transfer serious sexual cases allegedly committed by US servicemen on British soil out of the UK justice system and into the US system with no reference to senior personnel, either in the police or the CPS, and without any reference to the Ministry of Justice.

The letter of 25 September from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, helpfully confirms that there are no separate bilateral agreements or legal provisions that determine the allocation of criminal jurisdiction between the UK and the USA, other than SOFA, the NATO Status of Forces Agreement 1951. This is reassuring. It is always concerning to see in legislation—in this case, the Visiting Forces Act 1952—that such agreements could be kept confidential, and I am grateful to the Minister for being able to confirm that there are no such agreements. However, that does not remove concerns that, in a number of cases, such decisions are being taken at a very local level and without any reference to senior CPS or MoJ personnel. It is even more worrying that there appears to be absolutely no data collected on such cases—hence my Amendment 50.

I ask the Minister how she responds to the letter from the National Police Chiefs’ Council to all chief constables, dated 15 July, which sets out the need to strengthen the arrangements and processes for cases such as this. That letter also uses phrases such as:

“Chief constables may wish to consider the practical guidance and operating procedures”.

That is not direction; it means that a thousand flowers may bloom. This is a very light-touch approach and does not define the level of police, let alone CPS, decision-making in such cases.

It is clear that these cases have sensitivities beyond the actual incident between the victim and the alleged offender. Diplomatic relations are important, as well as divergence between our legal systems and support mechanisms for victims, which a local police force may not know about. That is why my amendment goes on to say that no decision on such cases should be made without the agreement of the chief police officer of the relevant police force and the chief Crown prosecutor for the relevant CPS area. They would also have to agree formally

“that the transfer is appropriate under … the Visiting Forces Act 1952”.

It is clear to many people that the transfer of recent cases that we debated earlier on this Bill are not, and the system needs to change.

However, our justice system needs to know about how many cases there are and who is dealing with them. My amendment sets out how that data should be collected and then sent to the DPP and the Secretary of State. Because of the public concerns about this, should the MoD not also report to Parliament on the annual data relating to these cases? I think it is now clear to everyone who has been involved in this debate and reread the Visiting Forces Act 1952 that not one of the recent cases highlighted by the Guardian should have been transferred to the US military justice system: serious sexual crimes are excluded in that Act. Will the Minister agree to collect data on these cases and that there should be a change of decision on them, ensuring no ad hoc transfers happen in the future?

Amendment 51, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, sets out the qualifying sexual offences where restrictions on the relinquishing of jurisdiction would apply. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply to my amendments on this and to hers.

Finally, I am concerned about Amendment 56, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, at two levels. First, disapplication of the European Convention on Human Rights, even if only for a specific and narrow issue, is complex, as we have debated in this House before. I know that the noble Baroness is concerned about the possible abuse of cases under human rights law. However, disapplication for any overseas deployments —many of which are not active war zones, where I think most of the actual cases of lawfare have come from—is a very broad brush that might produce unintended consequences.

An extreme example of that might be if a future Government decided to replicate the actions of the current US Defense Department, where women, ethnic minorities and LGBT military are having their jobs curtailed, including deployment, or removed because there is no human rights protection in the same way that we have here. This has already happened to very senior military who have outstanding careers in America. My second example is to remind your Lordships’ House that families of soldiers who died in the unsafe Snatch Land Rovers—known as mobile coffins—in Iraq were able to use the European Court of Human Rights to win their cases against the Ministry of Defence. Article 2, on the right to life, puts a duty on the MoD to provide suitable equipment to keep soldiers safe. It would be dreadful if our service men and women lost that protection.

Returning to my Amendment 49, I beg to move.

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green)

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, on this group of amendments, most of which refer to the cases of assaults on British women by US military, which we canvassed extensively in Committee. These are horrific cases; I think I could fairly say that your Lordships looked horrified about them—and absolutely rightly.

I was pleased to attach my name to Amendment 50 from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. It is clear that what we are talking about here is something that needs to happen, and I very much hope we might hear the Minister and the Government acknowledging that, since we need to know how big the scale of this problem is. We only know about the problem at all because of extensive, and no doubt expensive, journalistic work by the Guardian. I hear tell that a number of further cases are likely to emerge in the near future, including one where the US military did not inform the UK police at all. Therefore, this is something we need to keep track of, which is what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has done.

Some of that information was uncovered using freedom of information requests, but those do not always produce a result and are again reliant on individual initiative, which we should not be relying upon. The point made by the noble Baroness about the need for reporting to Parliament, so that Parliament actually knows what is happening here, is crucial. The final subsection of her amendment is also interesting. Saying that the decision would not take effect until the Secretary of State has reviewed and approved it is crucial. We need to see serious political responsibility taken for any decision that denies a British victim of serious sexual crime the protection of the British courts, and any person who is found to be a criminal should receive what the British state—the British Government and the British people—regard as an appropriate punishment. This is not something that should be handed over, practically ever. I cannot see any arguments for that.

I come to my Amendment 51, which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has kindly backed. This brings back the amendment I had in Committee, because I am afraid that the assurances we had then from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, did not address the fundamental problem: the need for stronger safeguards. The existence of legislation is not enough if it fails to protect victims in practice. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred to the letter from the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council but, as she said, that is only guidance: “Please think about doing this”. We know how much pressure our police forces are under in terms of resources—and if you do not react to that letter, there is no obvious penalty or action to be taken in response.

The Minister also referred to the Crown Prosecution Service guidance, but guidance alone is not a sufficient safeguard, particularly when questions remain about how the existing arrangements have been interpreted and applied. The approach should start from a clear principle: the UK should retain primary jurisdiction over alleged offences committed here against victims, particularly, or perhaps not solely, those with no connection to the visiting forces. There has to be clear justification for any departure from that principle, under narrowly defined circumstances. It should not appear to start from the circumstances in which a foreign service court has primary jurisdiction, and then explain why the UK does not. The presumption should be that the UK retains responsibility, unless there is a compelling and legally justified reason otherwise.

We should also be very cautious about treating notifications of victims as a sufficient safeguard. As we canvassed extensively in Committee, what victims are told and what they understand, the pressure they are under and the shock and suffering they have been through, does not necessarily equip them to make a reasonable judgment of what they really want to happen, or what they might, on reflection, have wanted to happen. The Government have acknowledged the seriousness of the cases that brought this issue to our attention, and I appreciate the Government’s desire to see a review, but identifying lessons and issuing guidance are not the same as clear legislation. If the Government agree that jurisdiction should be ceded only when absolutely appropriate, why are they unwilling to put the independent decision at the heart of the process?

That concludes my comments on my amendments and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I will just say, probably to no surprise of the House at all, that the Greens are against Amendment 56.

Lord Faulks (Non-affiliated)

I will speak to Amendment 56, which, rather confusingly, appears on Today’s List in this group and the next, but I promise your Lordships that I will spare the House a reprise of what I am going to say. The amendment is similar to one debated in Committee. It is concerned with lawfare—the danger that our troops, whether cadets, reserves or regulars, face not from adversaries on the battlefield but from lawyers and the dead hand of the law.

I begin by making it clear that I am not for a moment suggesting that our troops should operate in a law-free zone. The amendment makes it clear that they should be, and always will be, subject to the law of armed conflict. The concern arises from the ECHR and its incorporation in our own Human Rights Act. We cannot amend the ECHR and, as a matter of choice, we have legislated to take account of Strasbourg jurisprudence. In practice, this means that we almost always follow the jurisprudence of the European Court in Strasbourg. In Committee, I referred to some of the decisions, there and here, that have left our troops inappropriately constrained by the law—Al-Skeini being one and Smith v Ministry of Defence, referred to obliquely by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, being another. That, unfortunately, had the effect of essentially eroding the concept of combat immunity, which was well-established in our common law.

The incursion of law into military operations has left our troops in an embarrassing position with some of our allies. Because of legal advice, they can be sidelined and accused of something called legal freeloading. Accidents happen in war, and actions taken in the heat of battle may be regarded as excessive when studied by judges in the calm of the courtroom, particularly when viewed through the prism of that slippery word “proportionality”. For some time, Policy Exchange has highlighted this problem, beginning with Tom Tugendhat’s paper, The Fog of Law. This amendment would provide a carve-out from the Human Rights Act for our troops when they are engaged in overseas operations. Some of the persecution of our troops by the likes of Phil Shiner for events in Afghanistan or Iraq—not obviously European theatres of war—would have been avoided had this amendment been part of the law.

When I addressed your Lordships’ House in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said that he found my remarks incomprehensible. I will try to be a little clearer today for the benefit of the noble Baroness the Minister, who is in his place. I think the noble Lord’s point was that it was no good amending the Human Rights Act, which we are entitled to do as a sovereign legislature, because litigants can always take their cases to Strasbourg. I do not disagree with that, but we are entitled to amend our domestic law. How Strasbourg would respond is not always easy to predict. There is respect there for our national courts—I am clear on that, having visited Strasbourg and spoken to judges there. Further, the convention is a living instrument and the court is perfectly capable of changing course. So while the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was right, it does not relieve us of the task of improving our law and giving our Armed Forces better protection. Noble Lords will be aware that it has always been open to a country to derogate from the convention in times of war, under Article 15. The amendment would elevate the word “may” to the word “must”. This is a change at domestic level, unfortunately justified by experience.

The likelihood of our troops being engaged in military operations has increased and is increasing. We should provide our troops with adequate legal protection. I hope that those noble Lords who wish to remain in the ECHR will recognise that this amendment does not represent a dilution of adherence to the ECHR, the HRA or Europe more generally. It reflects the fact that even the best laws need amendment from time to time. I am rather more interested in the fate of our troops than in an overzealous adherence to the ever elusive concept of “human rights”.

Lord Murray of Blidworth (Conservative)

My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. I speak as a barrister practising in the human rights field and as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. It is clear that the convention signed by the contracting parties in 1952 provided in its first article that

“the High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section 1 of this Convention”.

The only reason that our forces have been considered to be subject to the convention when acting in the Middle East or in Afghanistan is by reason of expansion caused by decisions of the court in Strasbourg. These have then been applied domestically, as the noble Lord, Lord Fauks, said, in Al-Skeini and in the Smith decision.

This is a misstep that the court has taken. In my submission, removing the opportunity to bring domestic proceedings by amending the Human Rights Act in relation to the actions of our forces overseas would be a proportionate and appropriate step that would stop this fog of law occurring in the operations of British forces overseas.

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Brinton in the amendments that she moved so effectively. There is some confusion. The reason why noble Lords have been moving around the Chamber is that Amendment 56, which has not yet been formally moved by the noble Earl, Lord Minto, appears to be in two groups: this group and the next group.

Lord Katz (Labour)

With apologies, that is a clerical error. Amendment 56 is definitely in this group rather than the next group.

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)

I thank the noble Lord. Amendment 56 could have been narrowly painted as something that might have been in the case of war, in the case of active engagement, but it is very broadly written. As such, is not something that these Benches could possibly support. I am going a step further than most of my colleagues, who would say that at no point should there be any derogations to the ECHR. There have been cases where lawfare may have got in the way, but the amendment as proposed is far too general and we on these Benches will not be supporting it.

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

My Lords, I set out in Committee why these Benches cannot support the amendments from the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Bennett. As this is Report, I have no further comments to add.

My noble friend Lady Goldie and I have retabled our Amendment 56 as it is the firm view of our party that the ECHR, however well intended, has, through the ever-expansive jurisprudence of the Strasbourg court, mutated into an instrument that is actively opposed to our national interest.

At a time when it is widely acknowledged that Britain faces the most significant threats to our security and safety in decades, and where politicians of all parties are frequently repeating the phrase, “National security is the first duty of government”, how can it be right that those who we ask to serve and face up to real danger on behalf of us all continue to face the possibility of being hauled before courts for simply doing their job?

None of us has an issue with the words as written down in the convention all those years ago. The issue lies with the application of the convention and the expansion of its interpretation. My noble friend Lady Goldie mentioned in Committee the Al-Skeini ruling in 2011, which is just one such example of this ever more expansive application. Noble Lords will be aware of lots of other such vexatious examples.

In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said:

“The argument the Government put forward is that the disapplication of the Human Rights Act does not prevent the application of the ECHR”.—[Official Report, 8/9/26; col. 689.]

I appreciate that, and indeed I agree: I know that, so long as we remain a party to the European convention, domestic legislation cannot remove the application of the convention. However, that is not what I am arguing here. What I am saying, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, expressed this point with customary clarity in Committee and indeed today, is that the Human Rights Act permits a person to bring proceedings against our Armed Forces relating to an overseas operation, in reliance upon the convention rights in our domestic courts. This is a situation that my amendment attempts to rectify by removing the domestic remedy of the Human Rights Act but, most importantly, only in connection with the actions of our Armed Forces personnel when deployed by the Government on overseas operations. That would not solve the whole problem, and I do not claim it to be a silver bullet. However, short of leaving the ECHR entirely—which will be the ultimate preference from these Benches—the solution offered by Amendment 56 must be seen as the next best option.

I reiterate, because this is an important point, that I do not wish to give our Armed Forces blanket immunity. None of us wishes to see British soldiers engage in looting, the deliberate mistreatment of prisoners of war or sexual violence. Those remain crimes and they must be prosecuted. Importantly, our Armed Forces would not want complete immunity either; they are taught to hold themselves to the highest standards and they would expect us to continue to do so. That is why we have included in this amendment a declaratory subsection explicitly stating that British troops deployed on overseas operations remain bound by the law of armed conflict. I appreciate that that has no legal effect because they remain bound by that law regardless, but it is there to ensure that the fact is put beyond any doubt.

There is a problem here, as I note even the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, acknowledged to some extent in Committee, and we are offering the Government a way to rectify it. I hope the Government will soon see sound sense and understand that we cannot, in reality, be seen to ask our Armed Forces to serve, fight and potentially make the ultimate sacrifice while we permit the possibility of future persecution in our courts. That just cannot be right. Therefore, when Amendment 56 is called, I will seek to test the opinion of this House.

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her proposals and acknowledge her commitment to addressing concerns about jurisdiction matters between the UK and visiting forces.

On Amendment 49, I reassure noble Lords that the legal frameworks governing the allocation of jurisdiction between the UK and a visiting force are, as has been discussed, set out in Article 7 of the NATO status of forces agreement and are incorporated into UK domestic law through Section 3 of the Visiting Forces Act 1952, with further reference to Section 12. These agreements are already publicly available, and the principles within them are and should be applied by UK prosecuting authorities on a case-by-case basis when questions of jurisdiction occur. There are no other separate, legally binding bilateral agreements or legal provisions that determine the allocation of criminal jurisdiction between the UK and another sending state.

On Amendments 50 and 51, as stated previously, the Government are committed to identifying and, importantly, applying the lessons arising from the troubling cases highlighted during the course of the Bill. This includes the appropriate application and operation of jurisdictional arrangements under the Visiting Forces Act and how these are implemented across the criminal justice system.

Further to the action taken by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in writing to constabularies regarding their commitments under the Visiting Forces Act—the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton—the body is now working with constabularies, the Crown Prosecution Service and wider government colleagues on the production of robust guidance for all forces on the appropriate implementation of the legislation. That will seek to develop specific instructions to ensure that decision-making is appropriately informed by the legislation. I hope the word “instruct” is helpful, as opposed to “Can you please?”, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

In particular, the Government will be seeking to ensure that decisions are taken at an appropriate level, with guidance or decision-making as appropriate from the CPS for serious offences such as sexual offences and—to the points made by both noble Baronesses—robust data reporting built into those processes to ensure clarity and accountability.

I believe that, had the existing legislation been applied correctly in practice in the Captain Wulfson case, jurisdiction would have been retained by the UK authorities, not ceded to the US. As a result, the Government firmly believe that robust implementation of guidance will be the most effective approach to ensuring that the legislation is applied correctly in practice so that future cases are heard in the applicable jurisdiction and are appropriately auditable.

On the proposed inclusion of the Secretary of State as a final signatory on decision-making, as raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, the police and CPS exercise their respective functions independently of one another and are operationally independent of the Government and Ministers. Against that background, we consider that the approach to formal guidance currently in development provides an appropriate framework to support the proper consideration of questions of jurisdiction.

For myself and on behalf of my noble friend the Minister, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Bennett, in particular for their leadership and engagement on this important issue to date and their commitment to ensure that lessons are learned from the experiences of the victims that they have personally engaged with. I assure them that their contributions through this Bill process have informed the Government’s approach to the ongoing discussions with, among others, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and will continue to do so. I hope that provides the necessary reassurance for the noble Baroness not to press the amendment.

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green)

I want to put on record my appreciation for the serious engagement with this issue of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. However, on the point that the Minister has just made, I acknowledge that police and prosecutors operate independently of government, but I cannot think of any other circumstances where police or prosecutors have to deal with international diplomatic conditions. I do not really see how police or prosecutors can be equipped to make decisions that may have diplomatic consequences. So are they not going to consider diplomatic consequences, or are they going to be swayed by diplomatic consequences without really knowing how to take account of them? I am just concerned about how those two bodies are able to make decisions in an international context.

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

The noble Baroness makes a sensible point that I myself have not considered in detail. At this point, perhaps the best thing I can do is respond to her in writing with some thoughts about how that will work in practice. We know what the system is, but how that all interacts is perhaps something that we can discuss in more detail.

Amendment 56 seeks to make provision for members of our Armed Forces who have been deployed to be exempt from the ECHR. I will begin where I think there is some common ground. The noble Earl, Lord Minto, and others have raised serious questions about what is sometimes described as lawfare, about repeated investigations and litigation, about the legal certainty available to those whom we ask to make extraordinarily difficult decisions in conflict, and about the proper relationship between international humanitarian law and human rights law in the conduct of military overseas operations. Clearly, these are incredibly important questions. I shall deal first with the proposed disapplication of the Human Rights Act in relation to overseas operations, and I will follow the lead of my noble friend Lord Coaker when it comes to legal matters in sticking to formal comments, except perhaps in my closing remark.

The European convention provides rights to those within a state’s jurisdiction. As was said in Committee, in certain circumstances that jurisdiction may extend beyond the state’s territory, and the case law on extraterritorial jurisdiction has developed over time. I acknowledge the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, in Committee that the position on how the convention applies outside the UK has evolved over time through the decisions of the UK courts and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. But it is also important not to suggest that the result is that the convention automatically follows a member of our Armed Forces wherever they are deployed, or that every act occurring during overseas operation necessarily falls within convention jurisdiction.

The starting point in Strasbourg remains that jurisdiction is territorial and that extraterritorial jurisdiction is exceptional. Whether it arises depends on matters such as the authority and control exercised over an individual or effective control over an area. The Strasbourg court has recognised limits to the doctrine, including in the context of active hostilities. That is important context. There is a legitimate debate about how the jurisprudence has developed, but it is not correct to treat the present law as imposing an unlimited or automatic extension of the convention to every battlefield decision.

I turn to the practical effect of the amendment. The proposed new Section 7A would prevent proceedings being brought under Section 7(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act in respect of overseas operations. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, made an important distinction in Committee. His point was that the UK was bound by the convention before the Human Rights Act, and that Parliament can nevertheless restrict the remedy available under our domestic law. He accepted that, ultimately, an applicant might still seek a remedy in Strasbourg. I accept that distinction.

However, this is where the Government take a different view. We do not believe the answer is to restrict access to our own courts. The convention is based on subsidiarity. The Government believe that national authorities should have the first opportunity to address, and where appropriate remedy, alleged convention violations before the matter is brought to Strasbourg. As it is the Government’s view that we should remain compatible with Article 13, the question then is: if the Section 7 route is removed, what effective domestic remedy should replace it?

I now turn to the derogation, because here I want to be particularly clear. Article 15 exists for a reason. It expressly recognises that, in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation, circumstances may require a state to take measures which depart from some of its ordinary convention obligations. So let me make clear the Government’s position. If circumstances arise in which Article 15 is engaged and derogation is necessary and appropriate in accordance with our obligations under that article, the Government will consider derogation. But that is different from imposing a statutory requirement automatically to derogate whenever an overseas operation is considered significant.

I will end on this point. Although the Government cannot accept these amendments, that does not mean we should refuse to confront difficult questions about lawfare on the application of human rights law to modern conflict—a subject I was involved in teaching in my previous work. We should confront these questions and there is a wider debate to be had about them. I hope that we will continue to do so, but this particular amendment does not provide the answer.

Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken during this debate on two very different but very important issues. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for supporting my amendments and, in return, I supported hers again. I thank the Minister for what she said about the campaign that we have been able to join; we were not the instigators. There are more cases that will be made public. I am hearing about tens of cases, and I realise that they are historic. My greatest fear is about whether the system the Minister described is going to start catching the future ones quickly. That is why I want to ask her whether the guidance she referred to will be police and CPS guidance, and binding on both parties. Even if we do not have things going back to the Secretary of State, it is abundantly clear that the CPS needs to be involved in any formal decision involving these particular very difficult and hard cases.

I am grateful that the Government are looking at robust data reporting on this; that is extremely helpful. I thank the Minister for agreeing to write to both the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and me on some of the harder questions that we asked that might need a bit more thought. We look forward to working with the Minister if we can be of any help.

Finally, I thank the Centre for Military Justice, which has been doing an enormous amount of work on this in the background. Without it and the Guardian, we would not know about these cases at all. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment 49.

Amendment 49 withdrawn.

Amendments 50 and 51 not moved.

Clause 49: Protection of military remains

Amendment 52

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative)

My Lords, when I saw that my Amendment 52 had been grouped this way, in a group titled by the Government Whips’ Office as “service personnel welfare”, I wondered whether it sat easily with some of the other issues that we will touch on in this debate. On reflection, I think it does, because the huge debt of gratitude that we owe to our service men and women lasts long beyond their time on active service. In the case of those who have, very sadly, laid down their lives in the service of our nation, it lasts forever.

I should say, as I did in Committee, that I support the aims of Clause 49 and the changes His Majesty’s Government seek to make to speed up the processes and broaden the remit of the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. As we touched on in our earlier debates, I think that might benefit from greater precision about the term “in military service” in new paragraph (b) in Clause 49(2)(b). Does that, in the case of vessels, relate solely to those that have been formally commissioned or requisitioned, or is it to be assessed by reference to the functions and activities they were carrying out? If the Minister can say more about that, it may be helpful.

The Minister will be aware of the concerns I raised in Committee about a specific but consequential area of law relating to military shipwrecks. It was informed by research conducted by a team of academics at the University of Plymouth, led by Associate Professor Jason Lowther, and brought to my attention by the Joint Nautical Archaeology Policy Committee, which I know from my time at DCMS as Heritage Minister. In brief, these academics’ research has led them to the conclusion that the UK has inadvertently removed, or at least weakened, the protection of sovereign immunity afforded to Royal Navy wrecks and other Crown vessels. That long-standing principle is used to protect some 5,000 British vessels which lie at the bottom of seas and oceans across the globe. Quite apart from the heritage and historical significance of those vessels, many of them constitute the last-known resting place of UK military personnel who have given their lives in the service of this country.

The removal of the protection afforded through sovereign immunity places these vessels at risk of salvage by foreign nations or other actors, such as has most regrettably occurred in the recent cases of HMS “Prince of Wales” and HMS “Repulse” off the coast of Malaysia, and HMS “Exeter” and HMS “Encounter” in the Java Sea. We should be clear what that means: it is the graves of British service personnel being looted for scrap metal.

The academics who conducted this research were naturally concerned at their finding and have taken great pains to raise it with the Ministry of Defence and others before they are compelled to publish the research that has been publicly funded. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for taking the time to meet me and Professor Mike Williams from that research team, along with officials and lawyers from the Ministry of Defence, to discuss this matter. Like others, I wish the noble Lord a speedy recovery. Although it was a helpful meeting, there is still a point of law that is at least debatable, and this is a matter where clarity is certainly needed. I have retabled the amendment which I brought before your Lordships in Committee. It is, as I said, not an elegant or complete solution—not least because of the problems of scope in this Bill.

I hope the Minister will be able to say a bit more about the Government’s thinking in relation to the question of law that the academics have raised. Can she confirm whether it is still the position of the Ministry of Defence that Section 230(1) of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 applies only in UK territorial waters, and that sunken state wrecks beyond our territorial waters remain protected from unauthorised salvage under the principle of sovereign immunity? Is she confident that a salvage claim by a foreign nation or vessel could be resisted by a reasonable prohibition under Article 19 of the International Convention on Salvage? Above all, will His Majesty’s Government act with some urgency to ensure that the legal position, which offers protection to the remains of military vessels and the war graves of British service personnel, is clearly understood not just in our courts but around the world? I beg to move.

Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 53 and 57 in my name, and Amendment 54 in the names of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Penn.

My Amendment 53, which is a re-tabling of an amendment in Committee, seeks further reassurance, and the Minister discussed this with me ahead of this stage. My understanding is that what we are asking for—that records should be passed on within a month or so—should already be the case, but anecdotally that appears not to be happening, and there have been issues. That is why the amendment has been tabled again.

Amendment 57 seeks greater parliamentary scrutiny of the defence investment plan. If it were earlier in the day, I would suggest a fuller and more comprehensive debate on it, but I am not going to detain the House with that.

I strongly support Amendment 54, which the noble and gallant Lord will speak to in due course. The removal of immigration fees for non-UK family members of those who served with His Majesty’s Armed Forces was a manifesto commitment of all three parties, and we on these Benches strongly support it.

We also support Amendment 55, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Penn and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, on occupational paternity leave and pay.

From these Benches, we give this group of amendments —with the exception of Amendment 56, which has snuck into it—fair wind and support.

Lord Craig of Radley (Crossbench)

My Lords, my Amendment 54 follows on from the one I tabled in Committee. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, and for the guidance of the Royal British Legion in framing this amendment. All three major parties, in their manifestos for the 2024 general election, undertook to waive the visa fees for spouses and children of serving or former members of His Majesty’s Armed Forces who had served for four or more years but did not already have UK citizenship.

Over the years, there have been numbers—many Gurkhas and those of Fijian nationality—who have applied successfully, but they had to pay a fee of £155 per individual; not the £305 that I inadvertently mentioned in Committee. However, since April, this fee has risen dramatically and is now £3,226, so the undertaking of the political parties has become even more pressing. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, kindly arranged a meeting after Committee to discuss this issue with officials. It is a matter that the MoD alone could not resolve, as the Home Office and the Treasury have direct interests. I should stress that this is just the sort of issue that requires consideration of due regard at departmental level for the direct application of the military covenant. This is dealt with elsewhere in the Bill.

At Second Reading, I suggested that there might be a temptation to play ping-pong between departments when an issue of due regard would require the agreement of two or more of them, and that a silo approach might inevitably lead to delay. For example, a lack of certainty over how many families would be involved was raised by Treasury officials, which added to an impression of a department finding difficulties rather than the solution promised in the manifestos.

It has now been well over two years since the 2024 election, with little sign of progress to an agreed date. What is required promptly is not only a choice of lead department—I am grateful for the assurance from the Minister that the MoD is taking the departmental lead —but approval for a firm date of resolution. Officials have already had over two years to research, devil and solve such an important type of electoral promise. Surely such a straightforward problem must be solvable in two years or so by any civil servant.

As suggested in my amendment, the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018 would seem to be the correct statutory path for eliminating these fees. In my amendment, I have included the request for a transparent description of the exchanges between departments in reaching a solution. An indication of how such inter-departmental issues of due regard so closely affecting the military covenant will be addressed in the future would be helpful.

This is a tri-party manifesto commitment, yet there is still no date. Surely that is not acceptable to His Majesty’s Government or to the other two parties involved. Much as I do not wish to hold the Minister to account for the lack of progress, I feel that the view of the House in supporting the manifesto commitment and fixing a date for implementation might assist in persuading the Government that a solution honouring it must be reached, and soon. This is an opportunity for the Government to be seen to be gripping their manifesto commitment, to demonstrate that my own fears are groundless, and to reach a timely solution to give to the House. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Baroness Penn (Conservative)

My Lords, I add my support for Amendment 54, from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, on removing fees for indefinite leave to remain for families of serving personnel and veterans with a minimum period of service. As the noble and gallant Lord said, families have waited long enough. I will not add to his words, except to say that I hope the MoD has been successful in its work to corral other government departments to finally get this commitment delivered. Like others, I will listen carefully to the Minister’s response.

I turn to Amendment 55 on paternity leave. I thank the Minister—and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in his absence—for their engagement on this issue. As I said in Committee, this amendment is about how we support military families, but at its heart it is about military capability. I understand that feedback from the services raised concerns about the impact of extending paternity leave on operational capability and effectiveness, and I think it is fair to say there is some scepticism about the importance of this issue to members of the forces and their families. I will take the two points in reverse.

Since Committee, the Dad Shift has conducted a survey of over 1,700 members of the military and the MoD, and nearly 1,000 fathers responded. While 95% had taken paternity leave and 92% had taken the full two weeks, 94% felt that two weeks was simply not enough. When asked about retention, of the 544 who responded 35% said that their experience of paternity leave had influenced their thinking about leaving the Armed Forces. This does not match the view reported from service leaders at one of the meetings we had that this is not an issue, particularly for forces families. I am also concerned at the declining take-up of existing paternity leave policies and at what appeared to be a view that this should be seen perhaps as a positive, rather than as a warning sign around culture and workforce issues within our services.

Turning to operational capability, I would appreciate greater clarity from the Minister on why—given that paternity leave, like other policies under JSP 760, can be taken only at the service’s discretion, subject to operational requirements—an increase in paternity leave cannot be managed without impacting on operational effectiveness. That must already be the case where discretionary leave is granted—for example, in cases where a birth is via C-section, making up nearly half of all births in our country today. Given that all our major allies manage policies significantly more generous than ours, I would like to understand whether any efforts have been made to understand how they manage the operational impact of those policies, or indeed the benefits they may see on retention within their services.

I appreciate the work going on within the MoD to look at this issue further and I understand that focus groups will be conducted across all three services later this month. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that these will be focused specifically on parental leave and paternity leave in particular, and that the results of these focus groups will be made public and available to Parliament. To follow up on that work, will the MoD commit to questions on parental leave and paternity leave specifically being included in the next tri-services families continuous attitude survey, in 2027? It would also be useful to hear further information about the planned awareness-raising activities for the families day in November.

At Second Reading, I referenced the workforce crisis highlighted by the strategic defence review, a crisis not just of recruitment but of retention. It is unclear to me at the moment that the MoD and the services have serious plans to make the changes needed to address this, but I very much hope that I am proven wrong.

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green)

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, and to congratulate her on both the powerfulness of her speech and the fact that she is clearly making an impact, in that we are seeing some reaction from the military—but we need to see much more.

I will add one point to those made by the noble Baroness about military capability and the effect on families. It is crucial that we also talk about the effect on society. Children growing up with strong and stable relationships with both of their parents will be good for society in the coming decades. It is not just an individual benefit or a military benefit; it is a benefit for society. We really should highlight that.

I support the amendment of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. We have impossible immigration fees that are affecting so many people very badly, as part of a hostile environment that is creating huge numbers of problems. I would like to see this addressed more broadly, but, clearly, within the scope of the Bill, this addresses a group of families and people whose immigration status we should not be making impossible for them to maintain. We know that the levels of pay will make the fees impossible for some people, and that is not an acceptable situation.

Lord Harlech (Conservative)

My Lords, I declare an interest as an officer of the All-Party Group on Fiji. I support Amendment 54, in the name of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, and Amendment 55, in the name of my noble friend Lady Penn.

On Amendment 54, I will put one point to the Minister: our rules currently contradict themselves. A non-UK service leaver qualifies for indefinite leave to remain as of right after four years of service—that is the entitlement. Yet the fee waiver begins only at six years. So, for two full years, a veteran holds a legal right to settle in this country and is charged over £3,000 to exercise it. I do not believe that anybody designed that. It is a question not of generosity but of incoherence, which the four-year trigger in this amendment would correct.

Then there are the families who are not covered at all. The fee is now £3,226 per person, as we have heard from other noble Lords, against £155 in 2003. Some 26% of Army other rank spouses hold non-UK nationality, so we are talking about a quarter of the families of the soldiers who make up the bulk of the Army, set against other rank pay. For comparison’s sake, in the United States, serving personnel and veterans pay no fee whatever to apply for naturalisation because it is a statutory exemption, and it delivers full citizenship. We are currently charging over £3,000 a head for something that offers considerably less than that. The Minister was candid in Committee when he said that the Government are committed to this. He added that, even to his own Government, he sometimes says, “Can we get a move on?” I hope the Minister will say that again today and give the House a date.

On Amendment 55, as my noble friend outlined so eloquently, service personnel accept that operational need comes first and, when they take the oath, they accept that they will miss birthdays, christenings and weddings, because that comes with the territory. But this amendment addresses something quite different: the absence of a father in the first weeks of a child’s life, at a time when he is not deployed but simply back at base, at barracks. Nothing in the amendment changes the position that leave remains subject to operational requirements. The problem that means they cannot let anyone go is that the Armed Forces are too small. If we were staffed enough—if we had the right amount of workforce—it would not be a problem to let people go for paternity leave.

The Minister told the Committee that the wider parental leave review concludes in early 2027, by which time this Bill will have passed—so the review cannot help the families this amendment is about. I hope the Government will make more progress in this area, and fast.

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

My Lords, it is the end of a long day—although not as long as it might have been, I suppose—as we reach the final group on this Bill, so I shall not detain the House for long. As in Committee, these Benches fully support the efforts of my noble friend Lord Parkinson to raise the issue of salvage law and possible inconsistencies that affect our underwater military heritage. I understand that he has had discussions with the Ministry of Defence and, if he is content with its response, so am I.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, has retabled his Amendment 54, requiring the Government to amend the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulation 2018 to waive the fees for indefinite leave to remain for close relatives of service personnel. As has been mentioned, this was a manifesto commitment for my party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. I understand that the noble and gallant Lord has reached an agreement with the Government, which is welcome, and I hope the Minister will confirm this in her closing comments. Had the noble and gallant Lord been pressed to test the opinion of the House, we would have supported him.

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

I will address the amendments in the order they appear on the Marshalled List, starting with Amendment 52. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for bringing forward Amendment 52 and for his meeting with my noble friend Lord Coaker on 12 October in relation to salvage claims against military and Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels via Section 1 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, which is the principal piece of primary legislation in the United Kingdom that governs maritime law, ship registration and safety standards. I am personally grateful for his thoughtful and important remarks about the protection of military remains, and I share his grave concerns. I know he meant it in that sense.

I have a small point of clarification; I am not sure whether it completely answers the noble Lord’s question, but if not, I can write to him afterwards. To be classified as in military service, at the time of their loss, vessels must have been formally requisitioned, utilised for Armed Forces purposes and operating under military command.

Although it is recognised that there is an issue that requires clarification, it was agreed at the meeting that further assessment would be needed to fully explore the potential impact and unintended consequences that amending Section 230(1) would have on maritime legislation. For that reason, we cannot accept this amendment. But I reassure the House that my noble friend Lord Coaker will raise this with Department for Transport Ministers and other government colleagues to determine a way forward, as it is legislation that sits in their area. I hope this provides the necessary reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and on these grounds, I ask him to withdraw the amendment.

I turn to Amendment 53 on leaving Defence Medical Services—DMS—care. Service personnel are provided at their release with a medical care summary for their GP—it is a summary, I accept—and a form for the GP to request full records access. In most circumstances, providing a complete healthcare record on discharge does not benefit the patient or GP beyond current methods of handing over care. Automatic provision would also remove patient choice and produce a large volume of records, some of which may not be relevant to the service leaver’s future care.

Creating a second statutory duty would duplicate existing law rather than improving access to records or healthcare. I take the anecdotal point from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, about that not happening, and we will continue to focus on that. Compliance with data protection and security protocols presents a significant workload which should be prioritised for clinical care and cases that require this level and volume of records administration and disclosure.

Also, there are some good reasons not to provide a complete healthcare record to the individual unless it has been requested. An individual’s full, unfiltered medical record may include sensitive mental or physical health notes, third-party information, complex diagnoses or provisional opinions. That is probably the reason that I have not requested mine, to be honest. As such, when a patient’s full DMS health record is required, their NHS GP is usually asked to request it to supplement their NHS record. This ensures that it is received by healthcare professionals in full for summarisation and in the correct registered practice.

The future medical digital system, under Programme Cortisone, aims to make the transfer of records faster, electronic and more reliable. It will ensure that, when leaving the military, service leavers will not have to wait for health records to reach their NHS providers. Transfer and record sharing will occur digitally upon registration with a new practice.

I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, for his Amendment 54 and for making time to meet me; I think he knows that I will work hard and fast to progress his point. The Government have been clear that they remain committed to delivering this important manifesto commitment, as referenced by several noble Lords. I welcome the contributions from the noble Earl, Lord Minto, the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and others in support. We support the intention behind the noble and gallant Lord’s amendment and therefore commit to bringing forward a revised version of the amendment at Third Reading.

I turn to Amendment 55. As mentioned previously, there is an ongoing government review of parental leave and pay. The review is considering costs, benefits and potential reforms across the system as a whole. While the review covers principally civilian parental leave and pay entitlements, the MoD will consider the outcome of that review for applicability to the Armed Forces. To increase the uptake of paternity and family leave in the Armed Forces, which has been an issue in the past, the single services believe that clearer communication would help to do this. From late October, defence analysis surveys will assess awareness across the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force through focus groups. Findings will follow when the report is complete, and we will share them.

I will address a couple of the questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, raised. The focus groups that we are putting together will look at leave in the round but with an emphasis on, and awareness of, paternity leave issues, as well as the uptake of other leave provisions. The results will inform the evidence base and the development of any case for change in policy provision. We are considering specific questions on parental leave and paternity leave for the tri-service Families Continuous Attitude Survey 2027. As I have said, internal communications have been drafted to promote existing parental leave policies and to address the take-up of paternity leave; these will be published imminently. We will be factoring into our work on the evidence base where and how allies have implemented more generous leave without impacting operational effectiveness, as the noble Baroness pointed out, and the positive potential impact that it might have on retention and—following the points from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which I take note of—society more generally.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 57. The DIP is a deliverable and affordable plan that details investment priorities out to 2035. As with any long-term plan, it will be prudent to keep it under review. We have committed in the DIP to an annual update to Parliament before the Summer Recess each year on progress against the DIP and any changes in financial investments. While the publication of the DIP took longer than originally anticipated, we do not accept that a separate statutory assessment of the impacts of delay is needed. The MoD did not pause delivery while waiting for its publication. More than £31 billion was spent with UK industry last year, and the MoD has continued to engage closely with industry partners, including SMEs, throughout the development of the DIP and post publication.

I thank noble Lords for their time and the debate today.

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative)

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus, for the reply she has just given and repeat my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for the meeting that he and officials from the MoD had. I support all the other amendments in the group and commend the Government on the Third Reading commitment they just made.

On Amendment 52, as the noble Baroness said, the meeting we had earlier this month showed that further research and work is needed from not just the Department for Transport but the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which relates to the heritage aspects of this. I encourage the Government to carry that out with some urgency.

In the case of HMS “Exeter”, which was sunk in the Second World War in 1942, the wreck was not discovered until 2007. A very moving service was held the following year, and some of the veterans from the Second World War attended a service facilitated by HMS “Kent”. A Royal Navy ensign was placed on the wreck of the ship, as is naval tradition. By 2016, the remains of the ship had been entirely stolen. This is the speed with which these crimes are being committed in waters around the globe. There is some urgency here as well as some legal precision. I am grateful to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for taking that forward. On that basis, I happy to withdraw my Amendment 52.

Amendment 52 withdrawn.

Amendment 53 not moved.

Amendment 54

Lord Craig of Radley (Crossbench)

My Lords, I very much welcome the remarks and the expression of support from the Minister. I commend her on rising so admirably to replace the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on very short notice. I remind her that about 18 months ago, the Ministry of Defence spokesman in the other place assured that House that the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office were actively working on the manifesto commitment. I hope she will agree that a further six months would be far too long to wait to carry forward the promise in the manifesto.

Amendment 54 not moved.

Amendment 55 not moved.

Amendment 56

Earl of Minto (Conservative)

I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Ayes 67, Noes 168.

Amendments 58 and 59

Amendment 60