The Armed Forces Covenant
Defence Committee
Closed
Inquiry
This inquiry will examine the Armed Forces Covenant, the UK’s commitment to ensuring that members of the Armed Forces community are supported and treated fairly. The inquiry will explore whether the Covenant is working, examine areas where serving or former personnel and their families continue to face difficulties, and consider …
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5
Recommendations
8
Conclusions
1
Report
3
Oral sessions
2
Letters
3
Events
Activity timeline 10 events
8 Jul
2025
2025
16 Jun
2025
2025
8 Apr
2025
2025
Report published
11 Mar
2025
2025
Oral evidence
11 Mar
2025
2025
Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · Room 15, Palace of Westminster
25 Feb
2025
2025
Oral evidence
25 Feb
2025
2025
Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · Room 15, Palace of Westminster
4 Feb
2025
2025
Oral evidence
4 Feb
2025
2025
Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · Room 16, Palace of Westminster
Oral evidence sessions 3 sessions
11 Mar 2025
View on parliament.uk
Oral Evidence Session
Alistair Carns DSO OBE MC MP · Ministry of Defence
James Greenrod · Ministry of Defence
Sarah Houghton · Ministry of Defence
Vice Admiral Phillip Hally CB MBE · Ministry of Defence
25 Feb 2025
View on parliament.uk
Oral Evidence Session; Panel 2
Cllr Gillian Ford · Local Government Association (LGA)
Col. James Phillips · Office of the Veterans Commissioner for Wales
Councillor Lis Burnett · Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA)
David Johnstone · Office of the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner
Kate Davies · Ofcom
Lt Cdr (Retd) Susie Hamilton · Office of the Scottish Veterans Commissioner
Mike Callaghan · Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
4 Feb 2025
View on parliament.uk
Panel 1; Panel 2
Collette Musgrave · Army Families Federation
Lieutenant General Sir Nick Pope KCB CBE · Cobseo
Mark Atkinson · The Royal British Legion
Rebecca Lovell · Naval Families Federation
Vanessa Plumley · RAF Families Federation
Reports 1 report · click to expand
| Title | HC No. | Published | Items | Response |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4th Report – The Armed Forces Covenant | HC 572 | 8 Apr 2025 | 13 | Responded |
Recommendations & Conclusions
2 results
10
Conclusion
Acknowledged
4th Report – The Armed Forces Cove…
Fragmented evidence hinders understanding of Armed Forces Covenant effectiveness and accountability.
The evidence available to help us understand how well the Covenant is working is currently very fragmented. This makes recognising success, learning lessons and holding organisations to account difficult. The Minister told us there were ‘plans afoot’ to create structures …
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Government Response
The MOD acknowledges fragmented data and the importance of improving data collection and governance, describing ongoing stakeholder engagement, roundtables, and a planned annual conference in July 2025 to facilitate knowledge sharing.
Ministry of Defence
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12
Conclusion
Acknowledged
4th Report – The Armed Forces Cove…
Require Whitehall departments to provide annual updates on Covenant implementation and outcomes.
To enable proper scrutiny of cross-government efforts to implement the Covenant, Whitehall departments should provide an annual update on actions they have taken to uphold the Covenant as part of the Covenant Annual Report, along with outcomes. Departments should–when requested …
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Government Response
The government will engage with other departments to consider how they can best report on their Covenant obligations and the MOD will commit to providing evidence, while the Minister will continue to encourage other departments to do the same.
Ministry of Defence
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Correspondence 2 letters
8 Jul 2025
Letter dated 30th June from MinVP to the Chair regarding the Covenant Legal Duty.pdf
Parliament page
9 Jan 2025
Letter dated 23rd December from Secretary of State to Chair regarding dispensation to Service Personnel to contribute to inquiry on the Armed Forces Covenant
Parliament page