Speeches by Carns.

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing this very important debate at a very important time, to all the hon. and right hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions, and to the spirit of the House. The role played by Commonwealth forces in the first world war is pivotal; …”

“indicated assent.”

“Thank you very much for your evidence and the great work you have done on the defence housing strategy. Just to be clear, nothing in the Defence Investment Plan process is stopping us getting the work under way, is there?”

“Sorry, Natalie. Could you say that again? I could not hear you.”

“Thank you for the collaborative and polite way in which you are dealing with these questions.”

“When was that study done, with the six out of 10?”

“I, too, have lived in married quarters and seen repairs being poorly dealt with. They were either overly expensive or fixed the wrong thing altogether. Could you talk me through the consumer charter and how on-site housing officers will help to facilitate better management of contractual change and housing repairs?”

“Aurora New Dawn is leading some of that as well, and it is working closely—”

“Could you provide a copy of the consumer charter for evidence, please?”

“It is the ever-present issue of communication and education, which we need to get better at. I completely agree. Clause 17 will require commanding officers to report a serious offence to the service police, regardless of whether the individual is in the immediate chain of command, which is one of the issues you highlig…”

“The Defence Housing Service is being created in recognition of the DIO’s capacity and capability to deal with huge under-investment in the defence estate over the last tens of years. How will it increase DIO’s capacity to focus on other issues, such as strategic basing, single living accommodation and the plethora of o…”

“The whole Committee will be going down to see the Defence Serious Crime Command, and we will get to see the victim support unit. Clause 10 will introduce a new victims code of practice that is designed to support victims of service offences through the service justice process. Have you any thoughts on what the code sho…”

“Thank you very much, Sarah—that was really useful. When I was in your old job, I sat down with the VAWG Minister and taskforce several times. We have now created a pilot project that is being tested and trialled in two bases in the UK. Do you have any thoughts on how that is progressing? Have you been tracking that?”

“The Lyons review recommended that serious offences such as murder, manslaughter and serious sexual assault should be tried solely in the civilian jurisdiction unless consent is given by the Attorney General for the offence to be tried in the service justice system. Given that the Bill does not take forward that recomme…”

“Let me follow up on that question before I go on to some of the set pieces. First, thank you very much for your work over the last several years: it has been truly fantastic, and we have seen many of your recommendations implemented. You have talked about confidence and trust. When I speak to various parts of the syste…”

“Right, so four years ago. Do you think that the measures in the Bill do enough to protect and support victims?”

“Do you think that these new powers, specifically around sexual offences and domestic abuse, are adequate to protect victims of sexual harm and domestic abuse from further harm and issues?”

“That is a really interesting point of view. I know from speaking to a variety of people—witnesses, women and groups within the Defence Serious Crime Command—that the preference piece is critical. The civilian justice system obviously decides which way it goes anyway, but it is primarily on the preference of the victim.…”

“Please do. We would like to look into that.”

“A very simple question: do you think standardising the Reserve recall times between officers and other ranks will, first, make it easier to map and track the data, and secondly, give you a better picture of who is available for recall and who isn’t?”