Clause 1 - Pension and compensation schemes: armed and reserve forces
Armed Forces(Pensions and Compensation) Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Gerald Howarth (Aldershot, Conservative)
That is the Minister's response to the Select Committee. The Select Committee's concern was this:
''When it comes to negotiating pension and compensation entitlements, it seems to us that the Armed Forces are disadvantaged, because they have no-one to negotiate on their behalf as employees. Parliament therefore has a vital role to play in ensuring that the Armed Forces get the pension and compensation schemes that they deserve.''
The Minister is saying that the Government assert that they will continue to ensure that there is scrutiny, but I invite him to take us through precisely how he, as a Minister, will make changes to the scheme. Once the Bill is banked, will he, for example, table a statutory instrument that sets out the pension scheme and the compensation scheme? Will that statutory instrument be subject to the affirmative procedure? Will it be debateable? I seek guidance from him, which I am getting vicariously. He knows the concerns: the Committee is going through the Bill line by line, so I invite him to spell out where the parliamentary scrutiny will be and what form it will take.