Member

A minor point on Amendment 5 is that we have been through many iterations of this role, from the Service Complaints Commissioner to the Service Complaints Ombudsman and now the Armed Forces commissioner with this Bill. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, and I have been involved throughout that 20-year period, in one way or another. I could be wrong, but my understanding, from distant memory of the original Bill, is that no serving member of the Armed Forces could be commissioner, but they also had to have left the Armed Forces for a certain period before being allowed to take up the position. I could be wrong, but that sticks in my mind; I think the period may even have been five years. Is that right? The Minister may not be able to answer that now, but it is relevant, because if a former member of the Armed Forces does this role, there probably should be a time gap.