Speeches by Francois.

“One of the fundamental principles of the armed forces covenant is that there should be no disadvantage as a result of service. Abby Dryden: Yes, absolutely.”

“Thank you very much.”

“That is pretty clear, so thank you for clarifying. I will stop there because I know you have only limited time for your panel and others will want to ask questions.”

“Q To be really clear, is it both? If Corporal Atkins has exhausted the service complaints process but still feels deeply aggrieved and is convinced that it has not adequately dealt with his issue, he could still go to the commissioner, and the commissioner would have the discretion, just as the ombudsman always had, to…”

“Q Francois, Lieutenant 523962—very, very rusty number. Minister, we will get into all the debates on Thursday, but I give you fair notice that, after the testimony of a number of people today, including the last panel, we are probably going to try to provoke a debate on special needs education under clause 3, when we g…”

“The pressure on family life, as we have already heard today, is the single biggest reason why people leave, but when we went round a number of military bases, we found it was often an amalgam of reasons. Sometimes there would be a pressure cooker effect over several years, and then one thing might become, in colloquial…”

“Q I wrote a paper about retention, called “Stick or Twist?”, for a previous Prime Minister. Collette Musgrave: Indeed you did.”

“Q Perhaps I could take the liberty, Mr Efford, of asking the other two services whether they want to add anything on the SEN point. The Army tends to move around so much; I know that it is a particular issue when families move from garrison A to garrison B. Collette Musgrave: I would merely echo Maria’s comments. It is…”

“Q Anecdotally, if colleagues will forgive me, I remember going to RAF Digby about a decade ago, where there were some very highly-qualified communications specialists, who do important work, living in what were virtually demountables, to use a colloquial term. These people are massively employable in industry and then …”

“The Royal Air Force, what about you? It will be interesting to see whether we have a hat trick. Will you give us your top one or two? Maria Lyle: You nearly have a hat trick. You say that we represent families, which we absolutely do. We represent serving personnel as well, which is why I will mention housing in terms …”

“Q That is fair. The Defence Committee has done quite a bit on service accommodation down the years, but I cannot recall—having served on it for seven years or so—ever doing something specific on that. That is probably to the Committee’s discredit, but I cannot remember us doing a report directly on that. Collette Musgr…”

“Q Having dealt with the three families’ federations when I was a Minister—admittedly, about a decade ago—I always found your input extremely valuable. I put that on the record this afternoon. I am sure that the Minister will echo my remarks. You represent the families of service personnel and, as at the heart of the Bi…”

“Q Colonel Doherty, in fairness to you, we should put it on the record that, in the military, liability has a different meaning from the one that it has in general English language usage. Thank you for your service. The first issue is just a branding point. A while back the Army Benevolent Fund had a bit of a rebrand as…”

“If you are saying that the situation has got a bit better, that is encouraging, but I think you are also implying that there is more work to be done. We might want to explore that on Thursday under the “General service welfare” part of the Bill.”

“Q This is my last question. You mentioned SEND, which I think we have already agreed we might discuss on Thursday, because it is so important. Could you say a bit about the work that your charity has done on the SEND front? Mandy Harding: We realise that a lot of our families have “plus, plus, plus” issues. We know tha…”

“Q Some of your colleagues down the years have told me that knowing the TACEVAL team could turn up at almost any moment very much concentrated minds. It kept people sharp, is how one person put it to me. It is a slightly different situation here, but most people seem to think it is good to have those powers in the Bill.…”

“I was trying to be nice. Air Commodore Simon Harper: You are very kind, but I remember it as Ofsted-like. When I was a commanding officer, I remember Ofsted visiting my unit, which was a training unit as well. I will phrase my answer in that respect. I found those inspections to the chain of command hugely beneficial o…”

“Q Thank you. I think we all know that the Forces Pension Society is the Office for Budget Responsibility, if you like, of all military pensions issues, but as it is not here this afternoon, so forgive the question to you. Can we switch to the Royal Air Force, please? Air Commodore Harper, you are probably too young to …”

“Q You mentioned that you have 38 years of service, so you would be perfectly human to be thinking about pensions. There is very little reference to pensions in the Bill, but you could argue that if you are looking at issues of general service welfare, what happens to a service person’s pension is very important to them…”

“Q You have gone back to the status quo ante. Col. Darren Doherty: That is correct.”