Lord Coaker (Lab)

I thank noble Lords for their contributions. I say in answer to the specific question from my noble friend Lord Stansgate that, yes, the regulations apply to wherever anyone serves. I thank him for raising that issue and allowing me to clarify that point. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, I wish to read a particular thing. I thank him for his question and for his work with the reserves. It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the work he does with respect to them. The specific nature of the noble Lord’s question concerned what the term “Reserve Forces” includes. Schedule 1 to the Armed Forces Commissioner Act 2025 inserted new Schedule 14ZA into the Armed Forces Act 2006. The meaning of “Reserve Forces” in this legislation is the same as in the Reserve Forces Act 1996. It includes the volunteer reserve and the ex-regular reserve, but not individuals in the so-called recall reserve. That is the legislative position. I hope that is helpful to noble Lords. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for her general welcome of the regulations before us and the constructive way in which she engaged with them. I made a commitment on the whistleblower review. An interim review has been done; we are looking at that. We will invite the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Kramer, to the Ministry of Defence to have a look through where we have got to with the whistleblower review before we publish something, so that they can see where we are. The intention of that, with respect to this issue and the noble Baroness’s question regarding the families, is for us to ensure that families who complain or bring forward concerns around service life under this provision or, indeed, in a more general sense are protected from feeling as though they will suffer detriment as a result of bringing something forward either under this instrument or more generally. I hope that that answers the noble Baroness’s question, which she asked specifically in reference to this point, and her more general point about whistleblowing. All the noble Lords and noble Baronesses who I mentioned will, in due course, receive a letter asking them to come to the Ministry of Defence to discuss where we are on this point. I made that parliamentary commitment, and it is important to honour such parliamentary commitments. In general, you may not be able to amend legislation, but—this is an important point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will know—if a Minister makes a commitment to do something in order for something to be withdrawn, it is important that they follow through on that. I hope that that answers the noble Baroness’s questions with respect to safeguards and the review. On monitoring, let me reflect on that point about the review. The point about secondary legislation is that, if something is not working, you can look at it again, but the broad definition of what we have and the work of the commissioner are important. I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, that the commissioner has to publish a report and give it to Parliament. One would expect that if a particular problem had arisen as a result of their work, that would be reported in that annual report so that we could all see whether the regulations were working in the way we had hoped or whether the commissioner was drawing attention to something that Parliament needed to consider again. I would expect that to be the place where any review that was necessary would be pointed out. With those remarks, I hope that I have answered the various questions asked by noble Lords. I thank everyone for their contributions and their involvement in these regulations.