Lord Coaker (Lab)

One would expect the complexity of modern family life to be reflected in the regulations. In the end, one would hope that the commissioner would exercise some professionalism and care with respect to that. I take the noble and gallant Lord’s point and my noble friend’s point, but it is extremely difficult to do this and to capture every single potential arrangement. However, as I said in response to the noble Baroness, we are trying to have as broad a definition as we can, including as many different arrangements as we can, with some flexibility to try to capture the sorts of arrangements that we may not have thought of—such as those who are engaged and so on. As my noble friend pointed out, in his view, this does not adequately capture that; we will have to reflect on that and, where necessary, change it. A point was made about the difficulty of this; one has to try to do it, but we are ultimately dependent on the sensitivity of the commissioner, which is what I would hope we would do. The noble Baroness will have to reflect on the kinship point. I totally agree with the points that the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, made about attestation. The commissioner has a responsibility for the particular individual from that time. I will refer to that again in my remarks, but I totally agree with what the noble Lord said. I thought the intervention of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, was extremely pertinent. Many of us here are concerned about the abuses that we have seen. He made a particular point with reference to recruit training and the balance there must be between rigorous training to make sure somebody is fit for service with the abilities and aptitudes that one would expect and ensuring that that training is not inappropriate, bullying or in any way abusive. Certainly there is an expectation that, were that a concern or something that is brought to the commissioner’s attention, they would look into it. It is good to see the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, here with the experience that she can bring from her role. She is somebody who has shown that the “So what?” question can be answered, and she has made a very real difference with respect to victims. The “So what?” question is really important to the whole of the Committee. Many of us who have served are sick and tired of reading report after report, but there are changes happening and improvements taking place. At the same time, in the evidence given yesterday to the Defence Select Committee by the Chief of the General Staff, the First Sea Lord, the Minister for Veterans and others, they were openly talking about their complete disgust at some of the things that still happen and their desire to continue to work for changes. In fact, noble Lords may have seen some of the changes that they suggested, one of which was the establishment of a specialist tri-service team to deal with the most serious complaints. This tries to take them out of the single service that they would normally go to, by having a tri-service complaint system. That was something that the Chief of the General Staff and others talked about yesterday.