Armed Forces Bill Committee: New Clause 2

Parliament defeated a cross-party amendment to the Armed Forces Bill on 2 June 2026, with 302 MPs voting against New Clause 2 and 171 voting in favour. The result was never in doubt: Labour MPs and their Co-operative Party colleagues voted unanimously against, giving the government a comfortable majority. New Clause 2 was brought forward during the committee stage of the Armed Forces Bill, the legislation that governs the legal framework under which the UK's armed forces operate. The amendment would have added new legal protections or entitlements for service personnel or veterans, though the government opposed it as unnecessary or incompatible with its own approach. Defeating it means that whatever the clause proposed will not appear in the final legislation unless reintroduced at a later stage. The vote divided almost entirely on party lines. Every Conservative (93) and Liberal Democrat (58) MP present voted in favour, as did all five Democratic Unionist Party members, all five Greens, all three Plaid Cymru members, and two Reform UK MPs. Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs voted 300-nil against. The result sits alongside three other failed amendments on the same day, with New Clause 5 receiving near-identical support (170 ayes), suggesting a coordinated opposition push across several related clauses that the government systematically rejected.