Lord Coaker (Lab)

My Lords, to return to my remarks, I had thanked the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, for their contributions to the debate. I welcomed the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on her arrival and congratulated her on her perseverance. I was just in the process of making a couple of remarks about the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, made in speaking to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. I will deal with this further in my formal remarks, but the most important thing I can say to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Smith, is: look closely at Clause 4(4), which deals with the annual report to which the amendment specifically refers. Public awareness of that, its presentation before Parliament and so on are important, but thematic reports are allowed or contained within the legislation under Clause 4(3), and these again would be laid before Parliament. It is important for us to record that the Bill provides not only for annual reports—they speak for themselves, and they can contain all sorts of recommendations and refer to the thematic reports that the commissioner may or may not have made during the year—but specifically for a number of thematic reports on whatever they choose. It is important to recognise those two different avenues by which various information can be conveyed to Parliament about the commissioner’s work, which is why I referred to that. I thank the noble Baronesses for their amendments and for highlighting the importance of improving retention in the Armed Forces. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Minto, for his helpful introduction. As I mentioned previously, we know that forces personnel have cited the impact of service life on their families and personal life as the leading factor influencing their decision to leave the service. That is the very reason we have brought forward this Bill: if, by shining a light on welfare matters that affect the quality of service life, we can get after those matters, it should follow that fewer of our personnel will feel compelled to leave for those reasons. As I have said before, there is nothing in the Bill as it stands to preclude the commissioner from dedicating one or more thematic investigations, and therefore reports, to retention, if they consider it to be a general service welfare matter. In addition, if retention is relevant to their findings or recommendations for another investigation that they have carried out, there is also nothing to preclude the commissioner from including it in that report as well. However, it is vital to ensure the independence of the commissioner and it should be for them to exercise their discretion and autonomy in deciding on the exact content of their thematic reports. I turn to Amendment 18, regarding the commissioner’s annual report. The Government’s intention with the establishment of the Armed Forces commissioner role is to increase transparency and accountability. The annual report will be an independent report to Parliament on the state of welfare in the forces and what we must or should do to improve our offer to those who serve. The existing legislation for the Service Complaints Ombudsman sets out their functions and requirements. This includes the production of an annual report, which must contain anything that the current ombudsman thinks appropriate to the exercise of their functions for that year. Clause 2 of the Bill transfers the functions of the ombudsman to the commissioner and Clause 4(4), as I already mentioned, makes the necessary tweaks to their existing annual reporting requirements to ensure that they also include the commissioner’s new functions under the Bill. The commissioner therefore still has to produce an annual report, and it must be laid before Parliament. In the other place, the Secretary of State stated his intention that a debate on that report becomes a regular part of the parliamentary calendar each year. I hope that this promise to make the annual report a key part of parliamentary business is one of the ways of demonstrating how seriously both the Secretary of State and I already take the findings of the commissioner. The commissioner will be in a unique and unprecedented position to take a holistic view of the range of issues faced by service personnel and their families. Their position as an independent champion for our Armed Forces will allow them to bring to the attention of Parliament and the public a range of issues faced by service personnel. To overly define what should be in the scope of the annual report may undermine their independence. The Secretary of State will remove any material in a report that they consider is against the interests of national security or that might jeopardise someone’s personal safety. There will be stringent safeguards as part of this review process to ensure that the Secretary of State’s remit for redactions is limited to these categories. Furthermore, the Secretary of State will have only 30 sitting days from receipt to lay thematic reports before Parliament. A 30-day limit for an annual report that could be hundreds of pages long may be challenging, if we are to provide the appropriate level of national security and personal safety checks necessary in this context. The report, however, will be laid before Parliament as soon as practicable. By convention, it is common practice for the Government to respond to the recommendations of independent commissioners or ombudsmen, but I note the desire of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, to see this more clearly spelled out in legislation. With regards to a response being required within three calendar months, I share the noble Baroness’s desire to ensure that the Government respond in a timely manner; however, this may prove to be an unrealistic timeframe. The recommendations would be unknown and likely to require a substantive amount of consideration by the department. The three-month deadline is likely to lead only to a very high-level response, rather than to the more considered response that we would like. I hope this provides some reassurance to the noble Baroness and the noble Earl. On these grounds, I ask him to withdraw his amendment.