Developments from the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill

Today (31st March), the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill sat to scrutinise the bill line-by-line.

In this session, we debated and voted on new clauses that had been put forward. 

Labour want to see the following changes:

• We want to place the same legal responsibility to have 'due regard' to the Armed Forces Covenant on central Government and the devolved administrations, as the current drafting of the bill puts on local authorities and other public bodies. It should be equal across the board.
• We also want to widen the scope of the bill to address all matters of potential disadvantage for service personnel. These areas are employment, pensions, compensation, social care, criminal justice and immigration.
• We want to expand the powers of the Service Complaints Ombudsman, to include matters relating to the Armed Forces Covenant. If a person whom the covenant applies to finds themselves wronged in a matter relating to the covenant, they should be able to make a complaint.
• In a point that I raised with the Minister for Service people and veterans, we want to ensure that serious crimes like rape are tried in civilian courts, as was recommended in the Lyons review.
• We have a new clause, requiring the Government to produce a definition of 'priority care' and conduct a review of mental health waiting time targets for service personnel and veterans
• Labour want the Government to be required to report annually on the standard of service accommodation and publish a report on what constitutes minimum standards for Armed Forces accommodation.
• The many commonwealth veterans who have served our country should only pay the unit cost of an application for Indefinite Leave to Remain if they apply for UK citizenship
• Finally, the Government should be required to conduct a comprehensive review of the number of people who were dismissed or forced to resign from the Armed Forces due to their sexuality, and to make recommendations on appropriate forms of compensation. 

In today's session, I interjected to comment on the proposed new clauses relating to the creation of a Representative Body, akin to the Police Federation. 

I also contributed to argue in favour of New Clause 11. This clause would require the Government to report annually on the standard of service accommodation, and produce a Serving Housing Charter to set and enforce a common, minimum standard across all service accommodation. When nearly half of all service personnel are dissatisfied with their accommodation, we know something must change.

The drafting of the Special Report will start soon.

Information and Support
You can find out more about Wednesday's session, and watch it in full here
The Armed Forces Bill is available to read here
​The Royal British Legion
SSAFA
Help for Heroes
Veterans Wales (Swansea Bay University Health Board contacts)
​Forward Assist
Swansea Council's Councillor Champion for the Armed Forces - Cllr.Wendy.Lewis@swansea.gov.uk