Member

I hear what the noble Baroness says about the publicity campaign, but that is going to be one of the key points once the Bill is enacted: the individuals it affects need to know what the redress system is and what the powers of the commissioner are. That is going to take a while. We had this discussion before on Report. Let us be honest: this Bill is, I think, the third attempt to get this right. The proof of whether it works is whether people feel confident enough to come forward, and that we have a commissioner who is prepared not only to take individual cases but to conduct the thematic reviews that the Bill now allows. That should not be left, as it was in the last Parliament, to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, for example, which did excellent work with Sarah Atherton on her report on women in the Armed Forces. If an issue like that is coming up time and again, the commissioner should undertake that role.