Jim Allister

It is good to see the Armed Forces Commissioner put on a statutory basis, and to see the functions set out and see how the staff, though perhaps not directly recruited, can be provided for the commissioner. All that is good, but it causes me to ask why, if we are making that provision for the serving members of our armed forces, are we not making a parallel statutory provision for our veterans? Why is it right to have a statutory basis for the Armed Forces Commissioner, but not for the various veterans commissioners? Surely, if it is right for serving members, it must equally be right to have a statutory basis setting out the functions and ensuring staff provision for the veterans commissioners. I take the case of the part of the United Kingdom that I know best: in Northern Ireland, we have a part-time, term-appointed veterans commissioner for two days a week, effectively, with two staff seconded from the Northern Ireland Office, who is charged with looking after all the interests of the very many thousands of veterans that we unsurprisingly have in Northern Ireland. I ask again, if it is right to have a commissioner on a statutory basis for serving soldiers, why is that not the case for veterans? It would be not only a significant step forward in itself, but a significant nod to how we value our veterans community if we were to give them equality of treatment on this issue. I think that is very important. Without the role being on a statutory basis, a part-time, term-appointed veterans commissioner with seconded staff has his hands tied behind his back, frankly. In Northern Ireland, because this Government are going to repeal the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, we are moving back into a phase where we may see many veterans from incidents 50 years ago dragged through our courts. We have a veterans commissioner with no standing to intervene in the multiple judicial reviews that take place on those issues and no standing to take any official line on any of that. If we were to put the veterans commissioner on a statutory basis, with the available funding, there would be a role to be performed—and not just on that specific issue, but perhaps if there was a challenging judicial that touched on veterans’ issues. Why should the veterans commissioner not be a notified and intervening party in such proceedings? I think he should.