House of Commons Hansard Debates for 17 Jun 1992

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BANKRUPTCY (SCOTLAND) BILL [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified--

Resolved,

That for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Bill, it is expedient to authorise

1. the payment out of money provided by Parliament of--

(a) any fees paid by the Accountant in Bankruptcy under section 1B(4) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985 ;

(b) any administrative expenses incurred by the Secretary of State ;

2. the payment into the Consolidated Fund of any fees received by the Accountant in Bankruptcy in pursuance of regulations made under section 69A of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985.-- [Mr. Kirkhope.]

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Armed Forces (Discipline)

10.10 pm

The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Jonathan Aitken) : I beg to move

That the draft Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts (Continuation) Order 1992, which was laid before this House on 2nd June, be approved.

The purpose of the order is to continue in force for a further year the Army and Air Force Acts 1955 and the Naval Discipline Act 1957, which together provide the statutory basis for discipline in the three services.

The House will be aware that it is a long-established practice for service discipline to be fully reviewed every five years by means of the consideration of an Armed Forces Bill and for the disciplinary code as then enacted to be reviewed annually in the intervening years by an order in council which is itself approved by resolution of each House-- [Interruption.]

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is an important debate, and we are hearing an important statement from the Minister. It would be helpful if hon. Members who do not intend to remain left the Chamber.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I ask hon. Members at the Bar of the House to retire quietly.

Mr. Aitken : The House will also be aware that an Armed Forces Bill was considered and duly enacted in 1991. That Act continued the three service discipline Acts until 31 August 1992 and endorsed the process of annual continuation thereafter by order in council. I am therefore asking the House tonight to give its annual renewal to the discipline Acts by approving the order.

After that brief introduction, it would on a routine occasion be appropriate for me to resume my seat and listen to the comments of hon. Members who wish to debate the order. However, this year this debate provides a useful parliamentary opportunity for the Government to respond to the principal recommendations of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, whose report was published last April. First, let me thank the hon. Members who sat on that Select Committee for presenting to the House such a thoughtful report on various military disciplinary matters. After giving careful consideration to the Committee's recommendations I can tell the House that the Government intend to respond constructively and positively in the following specific ways.

The most controversial issue discussed in the report was that of homosexuality in the armed forces. After taking evidence from many quarters, the Select Committee upheld and accepted the Ministry of Defence's long-established policy that homosexual activity is incompatible with service in the armed forces. Indeed, in its report, the Committee acknowledged that the armed forces should not be required to accept homosexuals. However, the Committee did recommend that homosexual activity of a kind that is legal in civilian law should no longer constitute an offence under service law. That recommendation has been considered very carefully by the service personnel authorities, and they and Ministers have concluded that the Select Committee's recommendation should be accepted.

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I think that the House will require a careful explanation of the effects of this decision. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 provides that homosexual acts undertaken in private between two consenting males over the age of 21 shall not be criminal offences. That Act, however, did not extend to members of the armed forces. It has therefore remained possible, though rare, for legal proceedings to be taken against service men and women for homosexual acts that are not criminal offences in civilian law.

It is now the Government's view, following the advice of the Select Committee, that such criminal proceedings should no longer be brought. My Department has therefore accepted that the special provisions of section 1(5) of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 should not apply in future. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has been asked to implement the repeal of this part of the Act as soon as the legislative programme allows.

I should like to make it clear that this is a sensible measure of decriminalisation, whose purpose is to tidy up the differences between military and civilian law. It is not intended to alter the present disciplinary climate of service life.

Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda) : I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for making this statement. We have been asking for some time for such a statement to be made. On the issue of decriminalising homosexual activity in the armed forces, are the people who are involved in such activities liable to be charged under other aspects of Army law?

Mr. Aitken : No, unless they have committed offences that might also be offences under service law, such as coercion. However, the conduct of consenting adults in private will not be an offence under the disciplinary code.

Mr. Rogers : If two consenting adult soldiers or members of the women's forces together participate in such an act, am I right in thinking that they will not be charged with conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline, the usual catch-all phrase that is used? I remind the Minister that not for some time has anybody in the armed forces been charged with a criminal offence. A person has been charged either on administrative grounds or by use of the catch-all phrase, conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline.

Mr. Aitken : The offence, which is technically a criminal offence under service law, is being decriminalised. I shall deal in a moment with discharges for administrative reasons. If a service man or service woman had committed an act that was a criminal offence in civilian life or that constituted a breach of service discipline--I mentioned the offence of coercion--that would be applicable to any sexual relationship, whether homosexual or heterosexual, a service prosecution would still be possible.

Mr. Menzies Campbell (Fife, North-East) : Does not the point that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) made need further elucidation? I understand the Minister to be saying that a homosexual act between consenting adults in the forces will now be treated on the same basis as if it had occurred outside the forces. However, the hon. Gentleman asked whether that same act might be struck at by some other disciplinary provision under the criminal law, in so far as it applies to the armed forces.

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Mr. Aitken : I was coming to the question of discharges. It remains the policy of the Ministry of Defence not to accept homosexual activity within the armed forces. Service personnel who are involved in homosexual activity will, as at present, be administratively discharged, whether or not any criminal offence has taken place.

I hope that the House recognises that, although we have moved in the direction of decriminalisation, as recommended by the Select Committee, we have not moved away from the standards of personal conduct required of all those who serve in the special circumstances of the armed forces.

Mr. Chris Smith (Islington, South and Finsbury) : The step that the Minister has announced is a small but brave one in the right direction. However, I hope that he will accept that many of us want the Government to go further to ensure that ultimately the standards of conduct that we accept in civilian life are precisely those that are applied to military life.

Mr. Aitken : This would not be the House of Commons if that opinion were not expressed in it. Of course, I am aware of that view, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, in coming to these decisions, any Minister feels like the over-advised centurion in Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome", when

"those behind cried Forward! And those before cried Back!'" There are different views on the issue.

I emphasise that homosexual activity remains incompatible with military service, and that those who engage in it must be expected to be discharged. However, in future, individuals who engage in homosexual activity that is legal in civilian law will not be prosecuted under service law and they will have no criminal record or entry on the police computer.

Mr. Rogers : I am grateful to the Minister, but we must have elucidation on that point. If he is saying that there is to be no change in the law, we must accept it. However, in a similar debate last year, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces said : "Our practice is that the majority of service personnel who are required to leave the services on grounds of their homosexuality are adminstratively discharged Therefore, there is no question of such people having a criminal record on account of their homosexuality." The Government are now saying that they are decriminalising homosexuality per se in the armed forces but that in practice there will be no change in their attitude. Earlier in the same debate, the Minister of State said :

"It is a long-standing policy that both homosexual activity and orientation are incompatible with service in the armed forces."--[ Official Report, 17 June 1991 ; Vol. 193, c. 115-16.]

Are the Government sticking to that statement?

Mr. Aitken : Yes, the Government are sticking to that statement, but I think that the hon. Gentleman is being a little churlish in suggesting that there has been no change. It is true that the administrative practices in a great many cases will remain the same but, at the same time, the Select Committee found that there had been approximately 39 cases in the past four years of those who had been found to be indulging in homosexual activities who had been prosecuted. Those people at least will in future no longer have the problems of a criminal prosecution and criminal

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record, so to say that there has been no change is not fair. An important principle has been changed and there has been change in some practical cases.

Mr. John Bowis (Battersea) : I welcome the step announced by my hon. Friend, because it is fair and will achieve a measure of justice in bringing together the civil and service laws. Nevertheless, does he understand that there is a need to go further and to consider the problems that some people will have if they lose their service job and wish to return to civilian life with a black mark on their record which would not be there had they conducted themselves in the same way in civilian life ? In other words, someone whose activity in the services would be permissible in the Ministry of Defence could be disadvantaged at a later date, so that is perhaps the next step that my hon. Friend could investigate.

Mr. Aitken : We shall consider that point, but it is fair to say that in the overwhelming majority of cases there is no question of a black mark being obviously on the record. In evidence given to the Select Committee, one major general said that the type of report written in such cases was at pains not to disclose the fact that there had been any difficulties leading to the administrative discharge, although someone investigating further could come across such information if he dug deeply into the records.

Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow) : On the point raised by the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis), will the Minister confirm that such a person discharged from the forces would not be dismissed with ignominy ?

Mr. Aitken : I think that "with ignominy" is the wrong term because the usual literal term is "service no longer required", which could have many interpretations and ignominy would not necessarily be one of them.

It would be unfair to judge that that led to some obvious black mark or ignominious stain.

Mr. Tony Banks : May I ask the Minister a question which was asked earlier? Why do the Government consider that homosexuality is incompatible with service life?

Mr. Aitken : When one accepts service under the Crown in the armed forces, one also accepts that there are special responsibilities and special conditions. One set of those conditions is that one is not living totally in private but often in crowded barracks and under conditions of some stress. In those conditions, homosexual activities can cause difficulties to the community, and can have insidious effects on discipline, so they cannot be accepted as they can in civilian life.

Mrs. Edwina Currie (Derbyshire, South) : Like my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis), I warmly welcome the announcement, but my hon. Friend the Minister has already recognised the difficulties caused by his failure to go one step further. The reasons which he has just given are precisely those which used to be deployed to justify keeping women out of the armed forces. Women are now in the armed forces, and most of them perform brilliantly. They add a great deal to the services and are good or bad soldiers according to their qualities, not according to their sexual orientation.

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Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) : Does my hon. Friend accept that in the American armed forces, which have gone even further than we and have integrated women into combat units, elaborate and sometimes expensive measures are taken--for example, in the organisation and layout of barracks--to prevent the sort of problems that he has described arising between men and women, in terms of the pressures that can build up? If we were to make such arrangements to separate homosexuals, Opposition Members would be the first to make an outcry.

Mr. Aitken : I have had enough trouble getting through this subject in Britain, without having to examine what goes on in American barracks as well. My hon. Friend is right to say that there are some special strains and stresses of service life, whether in the American armed forces or in our own.

My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) has over- simplified the problem to some extent. But as she has intervened, I shall pay a genuine tribute not only to her but to several other hon. Members--my hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe), for Battersea (Mr. Bowis), for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) and for Harlow (Mr. Hayes)- -who have assiduously campaigned for changes in the law on this issue. They should take some satisfaction in the fact that a step forward has been taken in the direction that they would wish, although we may not have gone as far as all of them would have wanted.

Another important recommendation of the Select Committee concerned ethnic monitoring and racial harassment, referred to in paragraphs 34 and 35 of the report. The Committee made two recommendations about the position of members of ethnic minorities who join the armed forces. It said :

"We recommend that the MOD consider how best to identify incidents of racial harassment in the armed forces and keep records accordingly, and we recommend that the MOD reconsider its opposition to ethnic monitoring of service personnel."

On the latter point, I am pleased to reiterate the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces on 14 May that we shall extend to serving personnel our present practice of monitoring the ethnic origin of applicants to the three services.

On racial harassment, I remind the House that it is a clear and unequivocal policy within the armed forces that no form of racial discrimination is tolerated. Any complaint by a service man or woman of harassment or discrimination will be fully investigated under the redress of grievance procedures laid down in the service discipline Acts.

When considering record keeping, the Select Committee expressed concern about racial harassment as a form of bullying and recognised the difficulty in identifying cases in which race was the determining factor. There is no specific offence of bullying, racial harassment or racial abuse under the service discipline Acts. Such offences would be dealt with under other provisions, such as those involving conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline, or common assault. Currently, only the Army records centrally all complaints of assault and other ill treatment. It also records separately complaints of racially motivated ill treatment. The Navy and RAF do not maintain central records of all complaints of bullying and other ill

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treatment, but will do so with effect from 1 September and 1 August this year respectively. I need hardly say that bullying in itself is also regarded as a very serious matter and it has been made clear throughout the services that bullying and ill treatment will not be tolerated. I can report that the number of cases of bullying appears to have fallen significantly in recent years.

The Select Committe made a number of other specific recommendations which are being carefully considered within my Department. The Committee expressed the view that there should be a presumption that under-18-year- olds should not be sent on active service overseas, unless there was an overriding requirement for their skills or the threat to national security was sufficient to warrant the conscription of minors. The services believe that their deployment of under-18s is broadly consistent with the Select Committee's view, but the matter remains under consideration.

The Committee also recommended that the Ministry of Defence examine the terms of enlistment for under-18-year-olds and bring forward proposals for change within 12 months. I can assure the House that this recommendation is also being carefully and sympathetically considered.

The Select Committee also commented on the future of the Royal Navy detention centre and recommended that a timetable be announced for the closure of the RN detention quarters at Portmouth, and the redeployment of those facilities to the military corrective training centre--MCTC--at Colchester. A rigorous investment appraisal is being undertaken to determine the benefits and costs of such a step. The appraisal will be completed by the end of July. I ask the House to note that a decision in favour of transfer of facilities to the MCTC would necessitate further building work at Colchester, and that the time scale involved would mean continued use of the RN detention quarters into 1994-95.

The Committee also made recommendations regarding the services' sentencing policy to ensure equality of sentencing between men and women. This followed a visit to MCTC, where detention facilities for women are now available. I can assure the House that it has always been the intention of the armed forces to follow an equal sentencing policy, and the provision of specific detention facilities for women gives added practical effect to this policy. Action is in hand to amend the necessary regulations.

The Select Committee acknowledged the considerable changes which had taken place in the employment of service women since the previous Armed Forces Bill. It noted, however, that there were different minimum ages of enlistment for men and women--16 for men and 17 for women--and recommended that the minimum ages of enlistment for women should be brought into line without further delay.

I am pleased to tell the House that the Navy brought the minimum age of enlistment for women into line with that for men last October and that in September this year the Army will introduce a common enlistment age of 16 for both men and women. The RAF is currently considering a common age of enlistment for both men and women. This change is in line with our policy of aligning men and women's terms and conditions of service where practicable.

Finally, the Select Committee recommended that

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"The Government provide parliamentary time in the next five years for legislation to consolidate service law".

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : May I ask the Minister a question of which I have given him all too brief notice? When may we expect a statement by the Ministry of Defence on the declassification of records in respect of those who may have been taken prisoner in the Korean war? I have told the Department of my personal concern about certain of my contemporaries. Is the Minister prepared to contact the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to ask for information? In the light of the astonishing statement by President Yeltsin in Washington yesterday, what representations are being made to the Russian Government to obtain information about any such British service men who may still be alive?

Mr. Aitken : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of that question. I can give him some limited information. We did note President Yeltsin's remarkable statement ; it has raised certain questions and possible lines of inquiry. We shall follow them up, and we will certainly take into account the hon. Gentleman's point about the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. About 100 service men were unaccounted for in Korea, and about 80 were missing in action but not thought to be prisoners of war. We are looking at all the cases where new information comes to light and we will follow up all leads and suggestions made to us by responsible sources.

Dr. Godman : Will the Minister confirm that the children of service families caught up in sexual or physical abuse cases will be given the same protection given to children in England and Wales in relation to the Criminal Justice Act 1987 and to children in Scotland in relation to the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990?

Mr. Aitken : I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that I am only a Defence Minister. I am not qualified to comment on matters of Scottish law. However, I will endeavour to answer his question at the end of the debate if I am given the leave of the House to do so, or I will write to him later.

Before that intervention, I was referring to a legal matter about consolidation. I am pleased to tell the House that the Law Commission has already begun work on that task. It is a much-needed operation because, metaphorically speaking, the MOD seems to contain a veritable legal attic full of antiquated service law that needs tidying up or, in some cases, sweeping away. I was amused to discover that naval recruitment by the press gang is still legal under the royal prerogative and that at least 44 separate statutes need to be considered by the Law Commission, ranging from the Regimental Accounts Act 1908, the Seamen's and Soldiers' False Characters Act 1906 and the Colonial Naval Defence Act 1831.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn (Perth and Kinross) : My hon. Friend may be aware that "arson" in the royal dockyards is still a capital offence.

Mr. Aitken : I am most grateful for that interesting information. However, I wonder whether my hon. and learned Friend's point has shown that there is a need for a House of Commons Discipline Act. I hope that the House will feel that we have made a thorough and thoughtful response to the various recommendations of the Select Committee. There are

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additional points that I have not been able to cover because of the time available, but my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, for whom I am deputising this evening, will write to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House about them. If they are raised on the Floor of the House tonight, I will try to respond to them at the end of the debate.

I should like to conclude by reminding the House that, in their many different areas of operations, our services play an essential part in safeguarding our interests and freedoms. I pay tribute to their undoubted professionalism and dedication.

The high quality of our armed forces is due in no small part to their good morale and, in a military environment, to their fair and equitable system of discipline. It is essential to preserve that and to ensure that the high levels of efficiency and effectiveness that characterise the three services are maintained. That is what the Service discipline Acts seek to do, and I therefore invite the House to approve the order.

10.37 pm

Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda) : I congratulate the Minister on his appointment as Minister of State for Defence Procurement and I recognise that he is deputising tonight for the Minister of State for the Armed Forces who is in the Falkland Islands. Fortunately, I managed to get out of that so we are both meeting tonight away from our respective disciplines in defence matters. I am sure that the Minister will give his all to his duties.

I am pleased that the Minister has discovered that the press gang is still legal. I noticed a distinct gleam in the eye of the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) when the Minister said that. I will refer later to the hon. Member for Canterbury because of his view in 1989 that we could solve the ethnic minority problem in the armed forces by having an all- black regiment. I do not suppose that that idea would receive much support from the Minister of State. I want to pay tribute to our service men and women whose efficiency, skill and dedication are second to none and who continue to render great service to the country. Opposition Members have always supported our armed forces. We will not oppose the order because we recognise that a fair system of discipline is essential to the effectiveness and operation of our armed forces and that it is an essential framework in which they can exercise their skills and functions.

Breaches of discipline are relatively isolated, but, unfortunately, certain breaches of discipline occur regularly. Some of them form a pattern in many regiments, much to their shame. For instance, bullying was referred to by the Minister, not casually but in passing. Bullying in the armed forces takes place either formally often by way of brutal initiation ceremonies-- which still exist, although, to their credit, the Government have tried to stamp them out--or informally, when individuals or groups take it on themselves systematically to terrorise their service comrades. Such incidents have occurred over the past year. My colleagues will refer to incidents in which some of their constituents have been involved. Either type of bullying is absolutely indefensible. Besides being intrinsically wrong, it destroys morale and the well-being of units. Hon. Members who have served in

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the armed forces realise how morale can be lowered as a result of groups of individuals bullying people who cannot look after themselves.

Successive Ministers have taken action. I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Freeman), who has been transferred to the Department of Transport. When the hon. Gentleman was Minister of State for the Armed Forces, he was most diligent in pursuing bullying, but still the problem exists. The problem will not be solved until the Government bring senior officers to book. It is no good bringing the perpetrators of bullying to book--it must be senior officers who command units. If they are not good enough to control sadistic behaviour in their regiments or units, they are not fit to command. Until the Government take strong action against senior officers, we shall always have endemic bullying in martial societies.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the most endemic, sadistic and difficult methods of bullying in the armed forces is when one homosexual has a hold over another?

Mr. Rogers : I propose to deal with that intervention with almost the contempt that it deserves. It was a sweeping and silly statement. If the hon. and learned Member had talked in terms other than specifically about homosexuality, he might have had a point. I shall refer to the general issue of homosexuality. I urge the hon. and learned Gentleman to keep an open mind on the issue. It is complex. Homosexuality or heterosexual activity in the armed forces can, in certain circumstances, lead to breakdowns in discipline. That is equally true of an office, a factory, or the House of Commons, if we put the issue in a general working context, but I do not want to go any further down that line.

I was talking about bullying. Bullying takes on a special dimension when it occurs in the form of racial bigotry, discrimination and harassment. I welcome the Minister saying that he will set up the ethnic monitoring system to identify incidents and to keep records. I am not sure whether that goes far enough.

I believe that the Government deplore bigotry in our armed forces against coloured or black recruits. But they are not doing enough to combat it. It is all right to say, as Ministers have done in the past, that people should complain. The Minister of State for the Armed Forces said last year :

"We hear of people who have left the armed forces and say that they were discriminated against during their time in the armed forces. It would be much more useful if they complained at the time. If they did, such allegations would be investigated by senior officers, and there is no doubt that any form of bullying or racial discrimination or harassment would be seriously investigated and dealt with."--[ Official Report, 17 June 1991 ; Vol. 193, c. 117.]

How can one expect the victims of attack, racial prejudice, bigotry and harassment to feel that they have any redress in their units when the people to whom they are likely to complain are the very persons who are responsible for the general system under which they operate and, indeed, might even tolerate forms of discrimination ? It is naive to say that, because a person does not complain at the time that he is bullied, beaten or discriminated against, he should not complain later. He operates in a system that induces an atmosphere of fear.

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Complaints, even after the event, ought to be treated in a sympathetic manner. Simply to say what the Minister of State for the Armed Forces said last year seems a simple cop-out.

Much more needs to be done and much more must be done. Incidentally, as I said earlier, we do not want any further daft suggestions that the way to solve the problems of ethnic minorities in the armed forces is to set up ethnic minority regiments. I have never heard anything more daft in my life.

Mr. Greg Knight (Derby, North) : What about the Welsh Regiment ?

Mr. Rogers : The hon. Gentleman says, "What about the Welsh Regiment ?" That just shows his English bigotry. But we shall leave it at that for now. I certainly shall not get involved in that one.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn : What about the Welsh rugby team ?

Mr. Rogers : We do not lose every rugby match. We might do a little better next year. As a Scotsman, the hon. and learned Gentleman should be careful on that point.

The balance of ethnic minorities in the armed forces is not improving. I hope that the new Secretary of State will address that problem. It is odd that ethnic minority groups form about 5 per cent. of the total general population but provide only about 1 per cent. of armed forces recruits. To my mind, that is a waste of an excellent source of first-class recruits.

Mr. Bill Walker (Tayside, North) : I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks carefully at percentages when he suggests that certain people do not get their fair share. I do not know about the Welsh, but the Scots represent less than 9 per cent. of the United Kingdom population but provide far more than 9 per cent. of the strength of the armed forces. Therefore, it could be argued that the Scots enjoy more than double their fair share.

Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow) : Largely because of unemployment.

Mr. Rogers : My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) says that that is largely because of unemployment. That may well be a measure. But what a silly statement the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) makes. He does a disservice by talking about the Welsh and Scots as ethnic minorities. We regard ourselves as fully integrated members of the United Kingdom, not as ethnic minorities in any sense. Peculiar we might be, strange we might be, but we are full citizens of the United Kingdom and have been for many hundreds of years.

When I say that harassment and bigotry are shown to ethnic minorities I refer to those people who, simply because of the colour of their skin, receive a bad time in the armed forces.

Mr. Bill Walker : Ah.

Mr. Rogers : If the hon. Gentleman says, "Ah," in that naive way, he ignores a serious problem.

The apparently intractable problem of recruiting more people from ethnic minorities to the armed forces requires more effort. That is why I am pleased about the setting up of a register and that there will be ethnic monitoring of applications, and of people accepted for the forces,

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because the percentage of applicants from ethnic minorities accepted is less than the percentage of white applicants.

Mr. Michael J. Martin (Glasgow, Springburn) : Does my hon. Friend agree that the Brigade of Guards and the Household Regiments have a bad record when it comes to recruiting ethnic minorities? I do not think that there is a black officer in the Brigade of Guards.

Mr. Rogers : That is true. One only has to see the Brigade of Guards on parade up the road to see how it encourages members of ethnic minorities into its ranks. It is a shame and a blot on the British, when across the ocean in America a black man is the No. 1 soldier. We are still talking about pathetically low numbers in our armed forces.

An enormous amount of talent is out there to be used and I hope that the Minister and the Secretary of State will constructively consider our procedures for enrolling more people from ethnic minorities, as I have suggested.

I accept that the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the armed forces-- an issue to which the Minister referred--is a step in the right direction. On the other hand, the Ministers' statement does not alter the fact that, if anyone engages in homosexual activity, they will be thrown out.

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