Clause 10 - Orders
Armed Forces
10:30 am
Mr Ivor Caplin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Defence; Hove, Labour)
I should like briefly to introduce clause 10, which establishes how the Secretary of State's enabling powers will be used to support secondary legislation—in other words, through the statutory instrument process. That process is consistent with other public service schemes and provides a greater degree of parliamentary scrutiny than is available under the current pension arrangements for the armed forces. I consider the best approach to be one of
practical balance of parliamentary scrutiny and the need for regular updating of obscure rules—we discussed those at length under clause 1. I believe that the alternative approach that would, for example, demand more parliamentary time, would be more likely to result in delaying the improvements that we want to introduce.