Armed Forces Bill

I am sorry that the Minister did not want to take interventions. He said that the armed forces covenant is now 10 years old, but it is actually a lot older. It started in 2008 with the Command Paper under the last Labour Government, and the document he referred to, which came out in 2009, referred not only to putting the covenant into law but giving it teeth. The proposal in this Bill does not have teeth. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a bit strange that the weakened version that we have now has none of the proposals in the 2009 Green Paper? Let us also remember that this is the same Government who, in 2011, opposed the motion tabled by me and the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) to put the covenant into law.