Contribution
Again, this goes to the heart of the issue of independence. I accept that the Government wish to ensure that this individual and the office are independent and cannot be influenced, or have their work affected, by the Ministry of Defence. But at the moment the Bill says:
“The Secretary of State may make payments and provide other financial assistance to the Commissioner”.
I am sure my noble friend will turn around and say, “Well, it would be unheard of for a Secretary of State to withhold money”—in a minute I shall come on to an example of where this actually happened. But I learned a long time ago in local government that, if you control the purse strings, you control a lot of influence in terms of how you can affect the actions of any public body or any activity.
Again, referring to the German system, I accept, as my noble friend said—that this is not a direct copy of the German system. But there are safeguards in the German system because it says in the federal law there that the necessary staff equipment is made available to the commissioner for the performance of his or her functions, and it is a separate piece in the Bundestag’s budget. This is the budget that is drawn up by the Bundestag. It is a draft budget that is done by the Council of Elders and is then agreed to by the Bundestag. So, again, Parliament has a direct say. It has not been down to a Minister to decide that the Armed Forces commissioner will or will not get the finance, which is very different to what we are proposing here.
My noble friend said in the Second Reading debate and again today that the difference is that this will be put on a statutory footing and, therefore, that will make all the difference. It will not. The Intelligence and Security Committee is on a statutory footing under the Justice and Security Act 2013. I presently chair the committee, and it has not had its budget raised for the last 10 years. It has now got to a point where crisis talks are taking place over whether we can carry out our functions as a committee. That is because the previous Government took a clear decision not to increase the budget, even though we asked for moneys to be brought forward. So, again, just because things are on a statutory footing that does not mean that somehow they will be insulated from a future Secretary of State or Government —I am not suggesting that my noble friend or the Secretary of State would do this—who may not like what the commission is doing and may say, “We’re not going to give you another increase in your budget”. That is the death by a thousand cuts that has happened to the Intelligence and Security Committee.
Likewise, I presume that the budget is within the remit of the MoD. I have not been a Minister in the Ministry of Defence, but I know the battles royal that there are over different priorities in the defence budget. That makes you wonder who would be arguing for this within the defence budget if it is coming across other things. Trying to be helpful, I am looking for other examples for the Minister of where we could perhaps have a different system. A different system would be, again, my old friend the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, whose money comes from the Treasury and is part of the Consolidated Fund, so it is not in a departmental budget. That at least gives some protection for that money. But this is a serious point, and how this can be remedied needs to be looked at.
This is a simple amendment, changing “may” to “must”, but, without it, the individual in the role would, as I say, be very vulnerable. Who in the MoD is actually arguing for the Armed Forces commissioner in terms of budget? Are they arguing for this rather than for some piece of shiny new kit in a procurement round, for example?
If we cannot have this amendment, some thought needs to be given before Report on, first, how the budget will be provided and guaranteed; and, secondly, how this will somehow be ring-fenced. Without that, it will be easy to kill this off, either by not giving it any finance at all or by cutting its budget over a number of years. Those are my points and that is the reason for this amendment. With that, I beg to move Amendment 6.