Mr Mark Francois
MP for Rayleigh and Wickford · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Secondly, what actions is he as Defence Secretary, no doubt in consultation with the Chief of the General Staff, taking to push back against these pernicious in-year funding cuts imposed by the Treasury?”
“Taking him at his word, I must press him on some extremely worrying reports—first published in The Times on 3 September, and amplified in the Defence Eye journal on Tuesday—that British Army training is being seriously curtailed in order to provide in-year efficiency savings— “cuts”, in pub English— at the Treasury’s behest.”
“I am sure that I speak for the whole House in paying tribute to the Ukrainians for their fierce and determined resistance. They are fighting for the values of freedom and democracy, which this House has represented for centuries, so when we say, “Slava Ukraini!”, we mean it.”
“On behalf of the shadow Defence team, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the new Defence Secretary—Labour’s third in three months—to his place and to thank him for advance sight of this important statement.”
“Tragically, a number of innocent civilians were murdered in Kyiv last night. On supporting Ukraine and brave President Zelensky, there has been absolute solidarity between ourselves and the Labour party.”
“On housing numbers, there is no Reform MP present this afternoon, but Reform-led Rochford district council has just published its regulation 19 local plan.”
The complete record
Every one of 2,746 lines we hold for Mr Mark Francois, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 22 of 55.
“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.” This amendment would require the Commissioner to be independent from the Government and the armed forces and from any interference in the carrying out of their duties . Amendment 8 has been tabled to facilitate a debate on how truly independent the proposed Armed Forces Commissioner will be from the Ministry of Defence. The Committee may recall that this topic cropped up a number of times during our public evidence sessions on Tuesday.”
“Member for Colchester is quite an expert in this subject, so I take the point about the drafting; however, it was a probing amendment from the outset and we thank the Minister for putting those assurances on the record. As he says, if ever the commissioner were challenged on the point of independence, he or she would be able to refer back to this debate in the Committee Hansard . With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .”
“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 before our consideration of Bills. Perhaps this is teaching an old dog new tricks, but now, having seen that procedure in action, I can understand why it was introduced. Trust and independence cropped up so often on Tuesday, so we thought it was important to table the amendment to get some of that on the record. I am grateful for the assurances that the Minister has given and for the spirit in which he has given them. I know that the hon.”
“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 could say a bit more in his reply about the timing, and particularly about the interview process. I have a particular reason for asking that question, which I will come back to later.”
“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 clause 1. Question put and agreed to. Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Schedule 1 Armed Forces Commissioner”
“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 has a slightly different constitutional settlement from ours, but its Committees tend to be much more powerful than ours. They and their Appropriations Committee counterparts have what the Americans call line-item power, so they can increase or decrease the spending on a particular defence programme. Would that for one moment the Defence Committee had had that power. I see the Minister grinning quizzically at that.”
“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 Committee system and ours.”
“In extremis, if the Select Committee were to decide, for some good reason, that a particular candidate were not suitable for the role, would the Minister support the idea of its being allowed to veto the appointment? If not, how does the Minister envisage the Defence Committee playing a part in the appointment of this very important person?”
“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 congressional appointment hearings. That issue only arises because the Committee has a stronger power. Here, there is an increasing trend that a Committee is allowed to interview people and express an opinion, but ultimately it cannot say no. We all agree that the commissioner will be a very important appointment, for all the reasons that the Minister has outlined. Getting it right is really quite important.”
“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.” This amendment would require the Commissioner’s staff to include a KC to provide legal advice to the Commissioner on legal issues arising in the course of their work.”
“I hope that amendment 10 is relatively uncontroversial and that the Minister might even be tempted to accept it. We can but try. Amendment 9 would mandate that at least one member of the commissioner’s staff be a King’s counsel.”
“Given that the role has a wider remit than that of the Service Complaints Ombudsman, it seems likely that more staff will be required to carry out the expanded function—not least because it will now include visits to service establishments, some of which the commissioner could be empowered to conduct on an unannounced basis, subject to certain safeguards, if they thought that the issues that they were examining merited it. The purpose of amendment 10 is to reinforce the idea that the office should be adequately resourced by mandating the financial assistance provided by the Secretary of State, which is effectively the commissioner’s budget, should increase by at least real terms each year, defined using the consumer prices index measure of inflation, which is published by the Office for National Statistics.”
“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 intimate that once the office is up and running, it will start off with a budget of approximately £5 million, as the Minister confirmed on Second Reading. The Bill does not mandate a specific number of staff to assist the commissioner; it is not that prescriptive.”
“Member for Portsmouth North, sitting next to him, also seek to intervene or have I inadvertently answered her question?”
“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 hon. Gentleman will permit me, I am going to come in a moment to the exact rationale for why we have sought to mandate that at least one of the commissioner’s staff should be a qualified KC; he slightly pre-empts me. But I hope I can convince the Committee that there is a genuinely good reason for doing so and I am going to produce at least one real-world example. If that satisfies the hon. Gentleman, I will make some progress. Did the hon.”
“I am going to refer to a case that has concluded; I reassure you and your Clerk that the sub judice rule does not apply, I believe, because the case is over. On 10 December, the BBC reported, under the heading “Ex-lawyer spared jail over false Iraq War claims”, that “Phil Shiner was given a two-year suspended sentence at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to three counts of fraud relating to legal aid claims made in 2007.” For background, “The former boss of Public Interest Lawyers was struck off by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2017 for pursuing false torture and murder allegations against British troops.” The article continues: “A lengthy inquiry into wider allegations of abuse at the hands of British soldiers established ‘beyond doubt’ that all the most serious allegations had been found to be ‘wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies’.” According to the National Crime Agency, Mr Shiner received around £3 million towards the cost of legal aid for the cases in which he was involved.”
“Okay, thank you. We live in an increasingly litigious world, including the wider prevalence of so-called lawfare issues on the modern battlefield. Therefore it seems important to us that the commissioner should have access to senior legal advice in carrying out their duties. We believe that could best be provided by a qualified King’s counsel, perhaps specialising in areas of employment law and other matters that would relate to the welfare of armed service personnel and their families. There is a live issue in the armed forces community: if they take life, which sometimes they are required to do in the service of the country, what are the legal implications for them, maybe even decades later? The issue is generally referred to as lawfare. Let me give a specific example of why this matters, Mr Efford.”
“At this point, I give way—hopefully it will save the hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar the trouble of tabling multiple parliamentary questions.”
“In a sense, it does not compel the commissioner to do that, but it gives them that power very clearly.”
“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 a broad remit. But for the reasons that I hope I have been able to articulate, we believe that although the schedule that the hon. Gentleman mentioned would facilitate the Armed Forces Commissioner in seeking to appoint a legal adviser, that would have a spending implication. It could be—it is not inconceivable—that some in the Ministry of Defence would baulk at that. The intention of putting the provision into the Bill is to include beyond peradventure the right of the commissioner to seek to appoint a senior legal adviser.”
“It is a problem for retention in the armed forces, particularly in certain units, and this is an attempt to acknowledge that.”
“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 and, as has been intimated, there are KCs and KCs. But the principle of the amendment is that the commissioner should have access to senior legal advice because lawfare is becoming more and more of an issue for armed forces personnel. For the sake of brevity, I will not read into the record a very good article that appeared in The Spectator about why people are leaving the Special Air Service because of the issue.”
“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 necessarily have to sit in their office five days a week waiting for a case to come in. If there was no work, then they would not necessarily be employed. I accept that perhaps we should have put the words “part or full-time” into the amendment, but the key thing is that the commissioner would have access to a King’s counsel, even on a part-time basis, to deal with complaints that have a specific legal aspect, including aspects of lawfare. We did not mandate in the amendment that it had to be a full-time role.”
“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.”
“Having tabled the amendment to provoke a debate on that issue, and how the commissioner might help, I am very interested to hear the Minister’s response to a genuinely well-meaning suggestion.”
“This comes back to the whole debate about trust; the service personnel need to be convinced that, if they have a worry or issue about lawfare, the commissioner is equipped to deal with it effectively. That is the spirit of amendment 10. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the issue is becoming an increasing worry for service personnel. Again, for the sake of brevity do not get me going on Northern Ireland veterans this morning. But this is a problem, and that is why the amendment was drafted. I do not want to try the Committee’s patience, so, to summarise, we believe there is a broader issue here about the whole effect of lawfare on modern warfare—the effect it is having on both the recruitment and the retention of His Majesty’s armed forces.”
“One reason why quite a few personnel are leaving now, however, is that they are worried about the legal implications of the work that they do and, bluntly, whether the Government have their back. That is becoming a bigger and bigger issue. If the commissioner is there to ensure the welfare of service personnel and their families, along the lines that the Minister articulated very well in the debate on clause 1 stand part, they are going to need some kind of legal capability to investigate those sorts of issues. I take the points made by Government Members, but we are seeking to ensure that, whether it be full time or part time, the commissioner has the necessary legal firepower, for want of a better word.”
“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 reasons why. As a former Armed Forces Minister, I was commissioned by a previous Prime Minister to write a report on why people leave. It was called “Stick or Twist?”, because that essentially encapsulated the dilemma that service personnel and their families face. By the way, the decision to leave is usually a family decision—it is a kind of kitchen table conversation. The overwhelming reason why they leave, as we have said, is the pressure of service life on family life.”
“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, so let us not be over-semantic about it, Minister. For many personnel and their families, this was agonising. It jolly well is a matter of service welfare, because of the effect that it had on many people, many of whom subsequently left the armed forces, effectively in disgust. It really is a matter of welfare, and that is why we tabled the amendment.”
“I think we could have afforded the post, even if it had been full-time—and we did not mandate that it had to be.”
“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 explored. The essence of amendment 9 is that the commissioner would have access to high-level legal advice. Even if it were £1.3 million, given that our policy going into the election was to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030, I think we could have found £1.3 million within that number. The Minister is the one with the challenge, because he does not have a date for 2.5%. If he ever gets one, we would all like to hear it.”
“I hope I have made the point sufficiently this morning; I am grateful for the way in which the Minister has acknowledged it and dealt with it. As I think the point has been made, I will not press amendment 9 or 10. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment , by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the schedule be the First schedule to the Bill.”
“The establishment strength—the book strength, or what it is meant to be on paper—is 73,000. It was 72,500, but then there was an add-back of another 500, partly for the two Rangers Battalions. The British Regular Army is now nearly 2,000 soldiers short of what it should be, even on paper. Unfortunately, the trend is that more people are leaving than joining. I am not highlighting that point in order to say that the whole lawfare issue is the only reason that people are leaving the British armed forces. That is not my argument, but it is one reason, and it is likely to get worse unless the Government do something about it. That includes doing something about the so-called Northern Ireland legacy Act.”
“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 to the rank of WO2, the King—or the Queen, before him—will probably have spent the best part of £1 million on training them. If they then leave, perhaps because they have had a very bad experience at the hands of the likes of Mr Shiner, that is £1 million of investment that has just walked out the door. To be fair, the Minister understands the pressure. According to some figures that I received in answer to a recent parliamentary question, the strength of the British Regular Army is 71,300. This was in October.”
“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 Ombudsman.” This amendment would clarify that the Commissioner will investigate individual service complaints, as the Service Complaints Ombudsman did, as well as investigating general issues and publishing thematic reports.”
“It strikes me that she would be a strong candidate for the new role, although that will ultimately be a matter for the interview panel and, as we have discussed, for the Defence Committee, at least in part. When we questioned the Minister on whether the Armed Forces Commissioner would have the power to continue to deal with individual complaints that had exhausted the MOD’s own complaints process, in addition to conducting the wider thematic investigations envisaged in the Bill, he confirmed that indeed they would. That is reassuring, but I would like to give the Minister the opportunity, should he wish, to add anything more about how he sees the process of dealing with individual complaints working in practice under the Bill.”
“She told us on Tuesday that they now have only— from memory—30 individual cases left, all of which are live and actively being looked into. Given the history, as the Minister will know—I see he is nodding— this is a remarkable achievement, which drew praise from the Committee at the time that should be briefly repeated here. If I may slightly cheekily say so—I promise I have not spoken to Mariette about this—when asked on Tuesday she indicated that she might be minded to apply for the post when it is advertised. I would chance my arm as far as to say that, based on her track record to date as Service Complaints Ombudsman, at the very least I think she should deserve an interview.”
“The Committee will be pleased to know that I think we can deal with this fairly briefly. The amendment was tabled prior to the public evidence session on Tuesday, when I sought some clarity on something the Minister said on Second Reading regarding the extent to which the Armed Forces Commissioner will be prepared to take up individual complaints on behalf of service personnel or their families who have already exhausted the MOD’s complaints process. The Service Complaints Ombudsman currently has the ability to do this at their discretion. Speaking to the amendment gives me the opportunity to commend the current Service Complaints Ombudsman, Mariette Hughes, for the very good job that she and her staff have accomplished in virtually clearing the considerable backlog of complaints that were sitting in her in-tray.”
“I did assure the Committee that we would deal with this briefly. There has been a purpose to this brief debate, not least in placing on the record our praise and admiration for the current Service Complaints Ombudsman. That may or may not be a factor in any future interview. With that hopefully achieved, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 3 Procedure for making service complaints Question proposed , That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“If he could give that assurance on the record, we need not detain the Committee much longer.”
“I have one question. We understand the reason for the clause and, as the Minister has made plain, the Bill amends the Armed Forces Act 2006, so the amendment is to that legislation. We understand why the Government have changed “officer” to “person”; will the Minister give an assurance that such persons could include the immediate family of a member of the armed forces? I ask because sometimes members of the armed forces are reluctant to complain, but their family feel very strongly that they should. Without wishing to start any rows within a household, will the Minister put it on the record that if the circumstances merited it, a civilian who is a member of the immediate family of a service person could go to the Armed Forces Commissioner if they were very worried about their loved one’s welfare?”
“I hope that when the Minister replies, he will assure us that, following the consultation on these proposals—which will be overseen by His Majesty’s Treasury, not by the MOD, because it is a consultation on the IHT changes in general—he is confident that armed forces personnel and their families will be exempted from any potential inheritance tax liabilities on death in service payments, whether or not those armed forces personnel die in active service. I hope that I have managed to explain that in terms that the Committee can follow.”
“We do not believe that the Government deliberately brought in these changes with the specific intention of targeting armed forces personnel. There is a debate about farmers and other groups in society, but I am focusing today on armed forces personnel and their families. To be clear, we are not saying that the Government did this deliberately in order to damage those people’s interests. Nevertheless, the default position is that they would suffer in the ways I have just outlined, unless something is done. Indeed, the Forces Pension Society summed up the problem as follows: “We believe the Government has made an error and would not knowingly implement a policy that runs counter to the spirit of the armed forces covenant. The situation is recoverable should they act now.” We on the Conservative Benches support that plea.”
“Take the case of an OR-9 equivalent—a senior warrant officer at the top of the non-commissioned rank structure. This individual has a partner to whom they are unmarried, and on death leaves an estate worth £400,000 and death in service benefits of £248,292—four times their salary of £62,000. They would pay 40% inheritance tax on the non-pension assets, resulting in an IHT liability of £30,000, but after April 2027, if the DIS benefits were included in the estate, that would increase the estate’s value to £648,292. The IHT liability will therefore increase accordingly to £129,316. That represents an increase of around 330%. In fairness, we on the Conservative Benches suspect that this is an example of the law of unintended consequences in action.”
“If death in service benefits become subject to IHT there will be a delay to the benefit being paid both while the estate is assessed for IHT and while the amount of IHT attributable to the DIS [death in service] benefit is assessed and the scheme administrator (Veterans UK) pays the tax charge.” As the briefing note then goes on to explain: “Many who would not previously have been caught with an IHT liability will find themselves in a very bureaucratic process that will slow down the already lengthy process of sorting out the financial affairs of an individual at what is a very difficult time.” The Forces Pension Society gave several examples of how this could affect personnel in practice. For the sake of brevity, I will just give one, which I hope is sufficient to illustrate the point.”
“Not only is there the risk of the financial penalty—I will come on to a case study in a moment to illustrate the dilemma—but the bureaucracy could result in payouts from the estate being delayed while the liability for IHT is being calculated. The Forces Pension Society summarise the issue in its very good briefing note as follows: “At a time of extreme vulnerability, these lump sums need to be paid promptly, as they currently are.”
“This was a welcome reflection of societal changes over the past 30 years or so; introducing a potential inheritance tax charge on death in service benefits for those military people who are not married or in a civil partnership is at odds with the extant policy.” To put in this in layman’s English, because in my experience anything to do with pensions does tend to be quite complicated: if Corporal Thomas Atkins of the 1st Battalion the Lone Shire Regiment were walking down his high street tomorrow—not on active service—and unfortunately dropped dead of a heart attack, even if he had a long-term partner and perhaps three children but was not married or in a civil partnership with that partner, then his family would be liable for a potential inheritance tax charge on his death in service benefit.”
“This would lead to military personnel being disadvantaged compared with their civilian counterparts”, not least because their civilian counterparts would be “able to place such benefits in trust and therefore outside of the deceased’s estate.” The note continues to say that the introduction of the armed forces pension scheme 2005 and subsequently the armed forces pension scheme 2015—AFPS 05 and AFPS 15, as they are colloquially known— “saw eligible partners recognised as dependents and therefore eligible for benefits.” Under AFPS 05 and AFPS 15, personnel do not need to be married; they need to have an established partner. The note continues: “This was in addition to married couples and those in civil partnerships.”
“This follows on, unfortunately, from the IHT changes announced in the Budget. I will refer to a briefing that was recently provided to me by Major General Neil Marshall OBE, the chief executive of the Forces Pension Society, which, I hope the Minister and Committee will accept, is the absolute gold standard expert on any matter relating to forces pensions—the sort of Office for Budget Responsibility of armed forces pensions. The AFP note summarises the issue as follows: “Death in service benefits affect those who die prematurely. While benefits pay to spouses or civil partners will be unaffected by IHT, we understand that under the Government’s proposals, death in service lump sum payments for service personnel who die in the service and are not married or in a civil partnership would be liable to IHT.”
“In other words, their employer paid a contribution into their pensions, but they did not. In comparison, the last time I checked, most serving police officers pay something like 14% of their salary into their pension, whereas serving personnel still do not have to pay anything. Historically, the pension has always been—certainly as people become more experienced, get older and think more about their pension provision, much like the rest of the population—a vital tool in keeping people in. I would like to raise with the Minister one particularly pressing pensions matter, which provides a classic example of the sort of issue that the Armed Forces Commissioner should be empowered to investigate. In essence, it relates to the potential liability for inheritance tax, relating to death in service lump sum payments.”