Speeches by Roome.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. Amendment 6 would introduce a requirement for the service police and the Defence Serious Crime Command to refer all allegations of sexual offences and domestic violence to the civilian police forces for investigation and subsequent trial in the civilian just…”

“I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 12, page 29, line 6, at end insert— “115C Duty to refer sexual offences and domestic abuse to civilian police (1) This section applies where a service police force or the tri-service serious crime unit is made aware of an allegation that a person subject to service law, or a civilia…”

“Back in February, former Royal Navy officers and other expert witnesses warned the Defence Committee that although tapping an undersea cable is very difficult, they are vulnerable to sabotage, and more than three quarters of the UK’s natural gas is imported via undersea pipelines from Norway. Given Russia’s attacks on …”

“I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Published guidance can be interpreted differently from authority to authority. It is about how they put that into action. Local NHS services have a mad patchwork of transfer rules depending on where someone moves from across the country, which can make access to medical care difficu…”

“I was a local armed forces champion. I was in local government for 22 years and ended up being council leader before entering this place. I can tell the Committee that, in practice, I was going around and screaming my head off to make sure that people were listening but, as it was not mandatory, they could just refer t…”

“We heard in the Defence Committee that a lot of people currently serving in the armed forces have never even heard of the armed forces covenant; they do not know what it is. We are discussing how to educate the public, but a lot of people serving have never heard of the armed forces covenant. Does the Minister think th…”

“When I was a council leader, we signed up to the armed forces covenant scheme, which set some principles for councils. Can the Minister give any indication of how many councils up and down the country have actually signed up to the armed forces covenant scheme?”

“Will the Minister outline what the minimum requirement is currently?”

“I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to the Defence Committee report on the armed forces covenant, which is based on evidence from witnesses. It says: “As the current duty of ‘due regard’ is inconsistently interpreted, the extended duty must be accompanied by clear guidance so that the duty is clearly underst…”

“It is nice to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. Amendment 5 would add a new section to the armed forces covenant provisions that were introduced in the Armed Forces Act 2006 to try to make access to services more consistent. This Bill requires specified persons to have due regard to the covenant for specified m…”

“David, this is probably a question for you. There is a lot of money being invested in improving these houses, so how are you determining whether you are getting value for money from your contractors? They may say, “Oh, it’s the Government; they’ve got loads of money,” so how are you determining that it is good value fo…”

“Are you happy with the wording “due regard”?”

“What evidence would you need to satisfy yourself that somebody has given “due regard”?”

“How can we ensure that the public bodies that are going to have this new Covenant are clear about what is actually meant by “due regard”?”

“Good morning, everyone. I want to start by asking questions on the Armed Forces Covenant. Some of our evidence has noted that the existing Covenant duty is implemented unevenly. How will the Bill address the issue of inconsistent delivery?”

“Some of the evidence we have received has said that it is about the interpretation of “due regard”. How can we ensure that more people understand what “due regard” is going to mean?”

“Can I turn our attention to the additional complexities of the service justice processes for personnel serving overseas? What are your observations of the challenges for anybody serving abroad? Do you have any thoughts on how the measures in the Bill will affect those personnel who are serving abroad?”

“So would you say that this would be a good idea in future? If you were in business, you would set out your strategy, and you would have your funding that went along with that to pay for it. Do you think that in future it would be a good idea, when an SDR is produced, to have a fully costed SDR? Would that help, so that…”

“You mentioned early on that the SDR talks about NATO first. What does NATO first means to you?”

“You also have the contingency within that as well, don’t you? I can see that you have spent something like £3.37 billion of that contingency fund at the moment. Defence Nuclear has access to multi-year funding and to the contingency. Would the same approach benefit wider defence acquisition?”