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Armed Forces Bill

I am deeply sympathetic to the tales told us by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. Of course his amendment does not address the Ministry of Defence’s lack of support to individuals who found themselves with job problems when they returned from service. That is a question of implementation rather than new legislation. The legislation proposed in Amendment No. 173 seems wide ranging; in fact, really an invitation to litigation: "““A person commits an offence if … he discriminates against””" a person, on the ground that he, "““may become a member of Her Majesty’s reserve forces””." This opens up the possibility of a number of cases which, in the end, would not be in the interests of the Reserve Forces because employers would become wary about people using the excuse of discrimination because they thought they might join the reserves. So I would like the Minister to address the real question here: we have some legislation already, there is a problem, the Ministry of Defence is not giving our reservists enough legal assistance when they need it, and the resources necessary. That would be better than drawing up extra legislation, which would still leave the problem of how we resource people to get cases heard appropriately.