Enshrining the Armed Forces Covenant in Law

Following our Veterans Pledge campaign in 2019, Boris Johnson promised to enshrine the Armed Forces Covenant into law. This was achieved through the Armed Forces Act 2021.

Our Campaign Goals

The Armed Forces Covenant has been in existence across the UK at local level for over 10 years, with every local authority in Great Britain having made pledges of support. As a result, we have seen a significant improvement in the understanding of how service life can impact on the men and women of our Armed Forces, and how best to improve their day-to-day experiences to ensure they are not disadvantaged in accessing public or commercial services.

While the principles of the Covenant were enshrined in law in 2011, until recently there have been no consequences for public bodies disregarding these. That is why we campaigned on this issue in 2019, as part of the Veterans’ Pledge, to ensure that any future Government would make a key commitment to legislate and further enshrine the Covenant into law.

Legislation has now been passed which places a legal duty on specified public bodies, including local authorities, to have due regard to the principles of the Covenant – to ensure it carries enough weight and stature as part of the Armed Forces Bill 2021.

How did we achieve this?

As a military charity, we have consistently maintained that the Covenant should be strengthened in law. As such, we have been involved in various levels of consultation conducted by the Ministry of Defence Covenant Team with a range of stakeholders throughout the development of the legislation since early 2020. This includes the Joint Working Group (comprising representatives from Help for Heroes, Cobseo, The Royal British Legion, Combat Stress, Naval Families Federation and Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees).