I say to the noble and learned Lord that, as I understand it, the difficulty is that constitutionally we cannot extend this amendment to cover Scotland and Northern Ireland. That gets right to the heart of whether we have a service justice system for the United Kingdom, operating across it, or we do not. That is the difficulty with this amendment.
Turning to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, on the Richard Henriques recommendations, I know he was particularly interested in a defence representation unit. In recognition of the remarks I made in Grand Committee when I undertook to keep the House informed of progress on these Henriques matters, I explained then and when the amendment was tabled on Report that we have to analyse and assess these recommendations. We are not yet sure how they could be implemented and what measures would be necessary to implement them, but I am very happy to repeat my assurance to the noble Lord that I will keep the Chamber informed of progress.
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I can add very little more on this issue in Motion A1. The Government’s position is clear; I have explained why we hold it. I accept that a number of your Lordships disagree but, in support of what we are doing, I think the view of a former High Court judge such as Sir Richard Henriques ought to carry some weight and deserves some attention.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, raised the defence-wide strategy in respect of serious sexual crimes and offences. My colleague the Minister for Defence People and Veterans is taking that forward with purpose and resolve. I will find out the timetable and undertake to write to the noble Lord.
Returning to Motion B1 in the name of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, I thank noble Lords for their contributions. I remind the House that this issue was debated and decided authoritatively in the other place by a substantial majority, but I have endeavoured in my initial speech and my remarks just now to explain why we want the new covenant obligations. After all, what is currently happening in the Bill—improving the covenant and giving parts of it legal effect—is all down to the Government’s commitment to the covenant and desire to support our service personnel and veterans with reference, as I explained at an earlier stage of proceedings, to what our service personnel want. They are the people we have listened to and they identified the three specific functions in the Bill of housing, health and education. As I said, the covenant is not a legal obligation per se but a concept. That is why we have had to use a statutory measure to start applying it in a legal context to particular areas of public service delivery.
The reason why the Government do not wish to expand that at the moment is not due to some sinister, covert or malign purpose. We want to see how this works in practice—let the measures bed down, assess them and see how they work. Very importantly, if some feature is not working, we want to identify it and
what we do about it. That is a sensible, practical way forward before proceeding with any further enlargement of the legal duty.
That is the Government’s position. I accept that a number of your Lordships do not agree with it, but that is why we are proceeding as we are. I think noble Lords would accept that, overall, the Armed Forces Bill is a very important measure, not just for the legal constitution of our Armed Forces before the end of this year but—