There are three main facets to the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, which is being examined by a committee of MPs which must complete its consideration not later than Thursday 22 Oct 2020:

Update: The Public Bill Committee which has been considering the Overseas Operations etc Bill has now completed its work and has reported the Bill without amendments to the House of Commons. 

The Bill is now due to have its report stage and third reading on Tuesday 3 November 2020. Amendments can be made to the Bill at Report Stage. The Bill then goes to the House of Lords. Our article below is now archived.

The second reading of the Overseas Operations Bill in the House of Commons is on Wednesday, 23rd September. BAFF contributed to the MOD consultation prior to the drafting of the Bill, and we know that a number of our members have been following this closely.

BAFF's line since the Federation's earliest days has been that improvements were required in order to protect service personnel and veterans, but that no-one should expect impunity if there is credible evidence that they committed crimes. We also offered practical help by helping to arrange court martial representation, and basic professional legal advice for any serving or veteran BAFF member approached by ongoing investigations, even if only as a witness.

We wrote in May 2020 that BAFF sometimes gets requests for help from former staff who had been locally employed by British armed forces or other UK agencies, mostly in Afghanistan. We may support campaigns by other organisations or groups but we can't get involved directly on behalf of individuals. We can help to publicise any useful web links and would be pleased to hear from any organised campaign on behalf of former local staff.

The article below was originally posted in August 2020 and updated the following month.  Any BAFF member wishing to get in touch about these issues should please use the site contact form.

As a contribution to the debate about the Government's Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, it is impossible to ignore the following letter, given its source:

A Commonwealth citizen with leave to enter or remain in the UK, or who does not require such leave, is entitled to register to vote and then (if over 18 years of age and resident in the UK or serving in the UK armed forces) to vote in any UK General Election.

An Irish citizen who is resident in the UK and is over 18 years of age is entitled to vote in any UK General Election.

You must be registered by 2359 hrs GMT on 26 November to vote in the General Election on 12 December.

UPDATE (OCT 2019):  Thanks for all members' replies and for your scrutiny of the draft answers developed on this site. BAFF duly submitted a response to the MOD consultation on 'Legal protections for armed forces personnel and veterans serving in operations outside the United Kingdom'. (OCT 2020): The former BAFF Chairman Douglas Young gave oral evidence on behalf of the Federation to the House of Commons Bill Committee considering the Government's Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill.

The Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB), in their recently-published report on pay, allowances and charges for 2019-20, set out their thoughts on whether multi-year approaches to the Armed Forces' pay round would be appropriate. Multi-year deals are increasingly common in other sectors of the public service, but the Board took the view that multi-year deals would not be of benefit to the Armed Forces:

In our 2011 article Armed Forces Trade Unions? we said, firstly, that based on many surveys and our own consultations with serving personnel, we did not consider that traditional trade union status was the appropriate format for an armed forces representative body. Secondly that in any case, armed forces representative bodies in other advanced countries don't go on strike, and this includes those which are registered trade unions.

Might this be about to change in at least some European countries? BAFF has learned that the Council of Europe has published (7 June 2019) a puzzling and unhelpful decision by its European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) in a case brought against Italy relating to members of the Guardia di Finanza, a law enforcement agency which is "militarised" but does not come under the country's Ministry of Defence.

We are very grateful to Mr Herbert Möller for some beautiful photographs taken at the candlelit Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery on Christmas Eve, 2018. This is one of his photos: