Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has pledged that, if his party win the next General Election, they will create a new "Squaddies' Tsar" to represent armed forces personnel and their families.

In an interview with The Sun on Sunday ahead of Armed Forces Week 2023, Sir Keir said that the Armed Forces Commissioner would sit outside the military chain of command, and have the power to investigate and highlight issues affecting Forces and their loved ones.

The original BAFF Steering Group did a lot of work on future representative arrangements, drawing on academic studies and surveys, comparisons with arrangements in other countries, and direct consultation with a sample of 50 serving personnel and veterans.

BAFF is politically non-partisan, in other words although it campaigns in the political arena on relevant issues affecting armed forces personnel, it won't favour any particular party against others.

But in recent years BAFF has had far less of a profile in Parliament, in the media, or most importantly, in the awareness of armed forces personnel. Far from being the 'forgotten Federation', most sailors, soldiers and aviators have never heard of us!

It's arguable that BAFF's greatest achievement so far is to survive, when several other attempts have fallen by the wayside. (See 'Armed Forces Federation': Half a Century 1956-2006.)

The time of freewheeling is now over. BAFF is a not-for-profit membership organisation, and isn't trying to 'win' anything for itself. Instead it should now be capitalising on its earlier work, and make itself ready to inform the future debate, irrespective of political party.

What form should officially-recognised representation take?

An appointed armed forces commissioner outside the chain of command? Or a recognised federation along the lines of the national Police Federations? Or both? Or an armed forces commissioner monitored, and when necessary criticised, by a totally independent outside body which is answerable to nobody but its own members?

What arrangements work best in allied countries? Should we be looking at Australia? the USA? or even countries in mainland Europe?

Renewed work needs to start now. BAFF must be ready to inform and influence a future debate. It must be ready, not only to counter the 'sky will fall in' kind of objections met in the past, but also to react to anything not in the true interests of defence and its personnel.