Veterans Affairs Committee on June 19th, 2017

[Gp Capt Mark Heffron]

That is a difficult one. I haven't anything on that. We have that so very rarely. It's something we would have to look at further.

We have a system whereby anyone in the armed forces can complain. We have a service complaints system but that can be used for anything, and I stress not only this. We have a very well-funded service complaint system run by the three services. It's been pushed through our Parliament. It comes under legislation, and we have a service complaints ombudsman.

Each individual who puts in a complaint has to state what the complaint is for, if that would involve any kind of mistreatment or bullying or harassment, whatever that might be, so this would all be included. They also have to declare what they seek as a result of the complaint. It is processed through the services and there is an appeal process within that, and within each service, and at the end the case may be referred to or may be overseen by the service complaints ombudsman who is independent of the armed forces and is appointed through Parliament and who can look to see that the armed forces are operating as they should.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

That ends our first hour. We're going to suspend for about three to four minutes and come back with Paul Kingham, chair of the veterans advisory and pensions committees. We'll just suspend for a couple of minutes and come back.

On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank everybody who participated today. If there's any information that you want to elaborate on or any questions that you want to send us or any thoughts that you have, if you could email them to the clerk, he'll distribute those to all the committee.

Again, on behalf of the committee, thanks for taking the time out of your day today. We'll be back in a minute. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I'd like to resume the meeting. I have some bad news or some good news, depending on.... We can't get reception or can't get connected back to the U.K., so we're going to have to ask them to come back for our next meeting in September. With that, I think we can adjourn. I need a motion to adjourn.

Before that, if we don't see you in the next few days—or if we stay till July, then we can have meetings in July, but hopefully not—I want to wish everybody all the best of luck.

We have a motion by Mr. Colin Fraser to adjourn.

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.