Speeches by Francois.

“I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 2, page 2, line 15, at end insert— “(2) Once the functions of the Service Complaints Ombudsman become functions of the Commissioner, the Commissioner will investigate individual service complaints in the same manner as they were previously investigated by the Service Complaints Omb…”

“That is correct, and under the Tories in the mid-1990s it was well over 3%. The problem is that a lot happened in the 14 years, including a war in Ukraine. That is why we probably need to spend 2.5% as quickly as possible. Even if the Minister’s calculation is correct, by the time a senior NCO in the British Army gets …”

“I will respond in kind to what the Minister says. As he will recall, his calculation was that even if the KC that we have been debating conceptually were full-time—we can argue about the rate—it might cost about £1.3 million a year. We never stipulated that it would be a full-time post; I think the Committee has explor…”

“If you were one of the service personnel who was put through hell by Phil Shiner, that would be a welfare matter for you and your family. I could read into the record stories of stress, worry and angst that armed forces personnel have had to go through, sometimes for years, at the hands of Phil Shiner and his law firm,…”

“I beg to move amendment 8, in clause 1, page 2, line 2, at end insert— “(5A) The Commissioner shall operate independently from – (a) the Ministry of Defence; (b) the armed forces; and (c) any other government bodies and shall be free from any influence or interference in the exercise of the Commissioner’s functions.” T…”

“The Minister is nodding. We have a problem: our armed forces are shrinking. That is not necessarily purely for budgetary reasons; we are not going to get into the 2.5% of GDP discussion—I would love to, but I do not think the Chair would thank me for it. More are leaving than are joining and there are a number of reaso…”

“I do, but I have a contrary concern. People are leaving the armed forces in greater numbers than are joining. The other day, the Minister said— he will correct me if I have this wrong—that for every 100 who join, 130 are leaving.”

“I understand the hon. Lady’s question, and I do not want to get into an “angels on a pinhead” argument, but that member of staff could be part-time. It could be that on the staff of the commissioner is a qualified KC, but only brought into action when there is a specific legal aspect to be examined—they would not neces…”

“The hon. Lady is right. The amendment says that the commissioner should make the appointment; I hope we have given the rationale for why we believe that is important. What sort of KC the commissioner employed, and how often they used them, would be a matter for the commissioner: they would still have some discretion an…”

“I commend the hon. Gentleman for his accurate reading of the legislation. On Second Reading, the Minister made the point that the legislation is drafted to be facilitative. For instance—we will come to this later—it does not necessarily define exactly what are and are not “general service welfare matters”. It provides …”

“There are two questions there. On the first, the honest answer is that it depends on the KC. In my limited experience, different King’s counsels tend to charge different rates. One would hope that the commissioner would employ someone who was good at their job, so yes there would be a public expenditure cost. If the ho…”

“For the convenience of the Committee, I will take amendments 9 and 10 in reverse order. Essentially, amendment 10 is intended to ensure that the office of the commissioner is sufficiently well resourced to undertake its role effectively, independently of the Ministry of Defence. The explanatory notes to the Bill intima…”

“I beg to move amendment 9, in schedule 1, page 9, line 34, at end insert— “(1A) The Commissioner’s staff must include a King’s Counsel, with responsibility for providing the Commissioner with advice on legal issues arising in the course of the Commissioner’s work of promoting and investigating general service welfare.”…”

“They are not directly comparable, but as I was coming on to say, the American Committees have a much stronger power over appointments. To illustrate my point, some debates in the American media are about whether the new Defence pick that Donald Trump is advocating may or may not come under some challenge during congres…”

“If it is about Ajax, gladly.”

“The Minister mentions Ajax. I did not, but as he did, we will read that into the record. There were times when the Defence Committee would have dearly loved that power. Had we had it, certain programmes might have suffered a different fate. In parallel, there is another important difference between the American Committ…”

“I declare an interest: I served on the Defence Committee for about seven years. Over the years, there has been a debate about the extent to which the Defence Committee and other Select Committees should have power over appointments in the relevant Department. If I can draw a quick analogy, the United States Congress ha…”

“The Minister has summarised the clause very well. We understand the intent of the Bill. We said on Second Reading that we would be a critical friend to it, and hopefully that will play out today. Nevertheless, we support the principle of what the Government are doing, so there is no need to divide the Committee on clau…”

“I welcome the Minister’s welcome for the amendment. I hope the Committee is doing the right thing here. We tabled it because the issue cropped up a lot in the public evidence session. By the way, I thought it was extremely useful to be able to have that. When I first came to the House, we did not have such sessions bef…”

“I think the amendment speaks for itself. I seem to recall that on Tuesday the Minister laid out a timeframe for the establishment of the commissioner and their office; from memory, I think he said that the intention was to have it up and running in early 2026. Perhaps, in the spirit of the hon. Lady’s amendment, he cou…”