The report of the independent Covenant Task Force led by Professor Hew Strachan was released by the Government on 08 Dec 2010.

Vice-Admiral Sir Michael Moore, Chairman of the respected Forces Pension Society, has told The Times that the report is "incredibly wet and feeble."

The Daily Telegraph's Defence Correspondent writes that the Army is set to lose its ability to fight large scale tanks battles under radical plans being drawn up to slash its fleet of armoured vehicles:

Children and young people's rights groups are calling for a change in the law to end the recruitment of 16 and 17-year-olds into the UK armed forces. Their call comes ahead of the second reading of the Armed Forces Bill, which the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, will present to the House of Commons tomorrow (10 January). More from the Ekklesia think tank:

The Ministry of Defence stands accused of "politicising" the military covenant, under plans in the Armed Forces Bill to scrap an independent review of the Government's progress in honouring the nation's pact with servicemen and women. According to an Independent on Sunday report:

The government has released more details of the university scholarship scheme for children of British servicemen and women from England, Scotland and Wales killed on active duty.

The new Armed Forces Bill has been presented in Parliament, without any debate today. It is excitingly described as a "Bill to continue the Armed Forces Act 2006; to amend that Act and other enactments relating to the armed forces and the Ministry of Defence Police; to amend the Visiting Forces Act 1952; to enable judge advocates to sit in civilian courts; to repeal the Naval Medical Compassionate Fund Act 1915; and for connected purposes."

defencemanagement.com reports that military families are set to benefit from £10m of additional funding for their children's education through the introduction of a special 'pupil premium' as the government looks to 'rebuild' the military covenant.

The government is due to unveil a range of measures today to support the armed forces and their families. The measures are in a report commissioned in July into the military covenant to ask what more society could do to support the armed forces and their families. The report by Professor Hew Strachan found that many service families struggled to get a mortgage because they moved so often. UPDATE: The task force report has now been released. See Government to 'rebuild' covenant.

The Sunday Telegraph's Defence and Security Correspondent writes that allowances paid to thousands of members of the armed forces are to be slashed by hundreds of millions of pounds.

BBC News reports (12 Nov 2010) that Downing Street has rejected calls to protect the armed forces from cuts to public sector pensions:

The Cabinet Office today issued the list of proposed reforms to the Government's Public Bodies, or quangos. The following MoD-sponsored bodies listed below are all slated for retention. BAFF particularly welcomes the retention of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB).

The Daily Telegraph reports that State funding for the children of Armed Forces personnel to attend independent schools is at risk from last-minute cuts in the defence budget. While CEA is a major expenditure item about which there is inevitably a range of views amongst our serving members and supporters, the Telegraph story is a welcome corrective to some recent media reporting of CEA as no more than a "lavish perk" of "pampered military chiefs".

Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has appointed the new Shadow defence team. Shadow Secretary of State Jim Murphy will be supported by former Defence Minister Kevan Jones, along with Russell Brown, Michael Dugher and Gemma Doyle.

This is a transcript of the 'essay' by an anonymous serving officer which was read by an actor on The World This Weekend on Sunday 10 Oct 2010:

An article by the BAFF Chairman appears in the Defence section of the Sep-Oct 2010 edition of Government Gazette magazine, which was available at the recent party conferences. The full article can be downloaded below.

BBC News Defence Correspondent Caroline Wyatt says that amphibious forces have played a major role in British military operations for centuries. Now there are fears the Royal Navy could lose much of that capability, as the National Security Council meets to review the country's defence strategy.

Wyatt visited assault ship HMS Albion returning from an exercise in Scotland with young Royal Marine commandos aboard. She also interviewed the Commandant General of the Royal Marines and Commander Amphibious Forces, Maj Gen Buster Howes, as 40 Commando RM returned to the UK from Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Thousands of troops should be forced into the reserves and hundreds of weapons mothballed for Britain to make defence savings, according to a think tank study by a professor of defence engineering. The Daily Telegraph reports that:

The House of Commons Library has produced a useful note on recent developments affecting inquests and fatal accident inquiries (Scotland) into the deaths of service personnel.

The Goverment has announced that families of servicemen and women killed on active duty will benefit from publicly-funded higher education scholarships.The new scheme will apply to the children of servicemen and women killed on active military service since 1990, giving them the chance to take up university scholarships. The Government also announced the continuation and expansion of a scheme to pay tuition fees for Service leavers undertaking level 3 further education or undergraduate higher education courses for the first time, funded by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and the Ministry of Defence. These announcements implement two of the commitments given in the Conservative - Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement.

BBC News reports that new measures to help soldiers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan deal with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress are due to be unveiled at the Conservative Party conference:

As Republican senators rejected attempts to reverse the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy which prohibits openly gay personnel in the US armed forces, a decade after similar rules were abolished in the UK the head of the British Army's diversity unit confirmed it had been consulted by its military counterparts across the Atlantic.

As part of budget cuts the entire Ministry of Defence is to be dismantled and replaced by four soldiers of fortune sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit.

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), The Royal British Legion and Combat Stress have launched guidance to support GPs in identifying and meeting the healthcare needs of veterans more effectively - including accessing the priority treatment to which all veterans are entitled for Service-related conditions.

From one of our earlier articles about Manning Control, a policy used by the British Army to dismiss soldiers who are considered to be "not fit for a full army career":

A Polish pilot who led his squadron into battle from RAF Northolt has been reunited at the airbase with the same Spitfire he flew 67 years ago.

Footnote: BAFF highly values its friendly links with today's Polish Armed Forces personnel through Konwent, the Council of Senior Officers of the Polish Professional Soldiers.

After she died alone with apparently no-one to pay for her funeral, it has emerged that SOE heroine Eileen Nearne MBE had struggled with money because her war pension was stopped by the Government.