This briefing provides information in support of the House of Lords consideration of the Armed Forces Bill.
Armed Forces Bill 2015–16: Briefing for Lords Stages (299 KB , PDF)
This House of Lords Library briefing provides an overview of the main provisions of the Armed Forces Bill and a summary of the Bill’s stages in the House of Commons.
The Armed Forces Bill would renew the Armed Forces Act 2006 (itself renewed by the Armed Forces Act 2011) which provides the legal basis for the existence of the Armed Forces as disciplined bodies. This legislation would otherwise expire at the end of 2016. In addition, the Bill would update elements of the Armed Forces’ disciplinary system and extend the powers of Ministry of Defence firefighters.
The Bill contains provisions relating to the following matters, as summarised in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill:
Clauses concerned with repeals relating to discharge for homosexual acts and war pensions committees were added during the Bill’s passage through the House of Commons.
Readers may also be interested in the following briefing on the Bill as it was first introduced in the House of Commons in September 2015:
Armed Forces Bill 2015–16: Briefing for Lords Stages (299 KB , PDF)
An estimated 2.3 million people aged 16 years and over experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2024. Domestic Abuse Commissioner Nicole Jacobs has raised concerns about inconsistent support for victims and survivors and has called for urgent reform. The government has recently announced several policies aimed at enhancing this support, including a pilot of ‘domestic abuse protection notices’ and ‘domestic abuse protection orders’.
The importance of social cohesion and strong communities has often been discussed in the context of international events which have increased tensions between groups in the UK. This briefing examines what is meant by social cohesion, provides an overview of recent reports on social cohesion and communities, and sets out recent government statements on its policies to address concerns about social cohesion.
Reported retail crime has increased significantly in recent years. This criminal activity, encompassing offences such as shoplifting and assaults on retail workers, has impacted businesses, their employees and local economies. The government has outlined plans to tackle retail crime in response to this issue. This includes legislating to create a new specific offence of assaulting a retail worker and to remove the threshold on so-called “low-value” shoplifting offences.
