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9.29 pm
Mr. Viggers: The Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill is a most interesting Committee on which to serve. It was a great honour to be its Chairman for the second time in 10 years.
Paragraph 4 of the Select Committee report, which I wrote, states:
"It has been the policy of successive Governments to preserve consistency, as far as appropriate . . . between civilian and military law."
9 May 1996 : Column 515
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However, there is some tension:
"Civilian law may reflect changing social attitudes, and these have in recent years involved some relaxation of the stricter discipline and formal personal relationships of former generations. On the other hand, the Armed Forces derive strength from their structured environment and from military discipline . . . The Committee has been very conscious of the serious and sensitive issues involved in deciding when military law and practice should be consistent with civilian law".
There have been a number of important issues for the Select Committee to consider, some of which are outside the scope of the Bill. We took evidence over nine sittings and considered a wealth of written material. We did more work and received more paper than any previous Committee, to produce a more substantial Bill.
I should like to thank the Committee members who helped our work to proceed swiftly and in a spirit of co-operation and good-humour. That was reflected in the need for only one Division, which was also good-humoured, forced by the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George).
I welcome the significant improvements to the courts martial system in the Bill, which introduces a greater element of independence.
The future of the royal naval college, Greenwich excited much interest and local concern. As a loyal Conservative, it is better for me not to look at the starting point and the narrative, but to consider the conclusion, which is immensely satisfactory and better than we could have dreamt of at the beginning of our deliberations.
I am grateful for the constructive attitude of my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, who took a personal interest in the issue. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces more than met our concerns with an amendment proposed in Committee which was made to the Bill.
The hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), a colleague on the North Atlantic Assembly, referred to the report by the Commission for Racial Equality into allegations of racism in the Household Cavalry. Let me reassure him about the bilateral nature of our approach to the Bill by telling him that, when I discovered the Commission for Racial Equality was about to produce its report, I suggested to the Committee--which readily agreed--that we should postpone our deliberation of matters relating to racial equality until it had been published. We then called witnesses from the Ministry of Defence and made absolutely sure that it was committed to the policy that it had signed with the Commission for Racial Equality.
On Second Reading, I drew attention to the fact that, despite all good intentions, recruitment into the armed forces of those in ethnic minorities had fallen. I am convinced, however, that the Commission for Racial Equality and the Ministry of Defence have reached a firm and clear agreement. Although it is a five-year programme, it will not end after five years; it will commence now and be active immediately. We have received assurances from the Ministry of Defence that it will provide a definitive statement of its position before the next sitting of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill in four to five years time. That is the long-stop position, and there will be positive action in the meantime.
Some people will no doubt be disappointed by the Committee's conclusions on current policy on homosexuality. After studying the findings of the MOD's comprehensive review and talking to many personnel across the ranks in all three services, as well as to serving personnel in other armed forces, it was impossible to conclude other than that the presence of openly homosexual personnel would cause significant difficulties for commanding officers and other ranks. The risks to operational effectiveness are real. Unless and until that alters, any policy change would be difficult to justify.
Having spoken to representatives of the armed forces of other countries, I am not persuaded that any other country has achieved a more effective system of rules than ours. There has been an assumption in much of the debate in the House that everything is inexorably moving one way--a kind of ratchet--towards liberality without firm, clear standards. In evidence from gay rights activists, we were told that prejudice is immoral. A large number of people in this country and in the armed forces believe that not only prejudice, but homosexuality, is immoral. It may be that the tide is not moving all in one direction.
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle):
Is that the hon. Gentleman's opinion?
Mr. Viggers:
I have expressed a point of view that I believe to be widely held in this country. I do not believe that the view is universally held that the movement is all one way and that movement towards liberality is inexorable. That is my personal view; it is not expressed in any other representational capacity.
Consideration of a measure such as the Armed Forces Bill by a Select Committee every five years is a useful way of keeping a check on matters relating to discipline in the armed forces, and we were of course happy to commend the Bill to the House.
I want to give three final votes of thanks. Two are serious and one may sound slightly frivolous. I want to express, first, thanks for the work contributed by the Ministry of Defence. A year or more ago, the MOD set up a team ably led by David Woodhead to deal specifically with the Select Committee on the Bill. That team, and the Ministry as a whole, responded quickly, efficiently and generously to our requests for information and facilities--such as travel and the opportunity to meet forces personnel. I am sure that the Committee would want me to give the most generous vote of thanks to the Ministry and all its staff. I should be grateful if the Minister would make sure that those thanks are conveyed in the most suitable manner.
The Committee would wish me to thank also Chris Shaw, who is the second Clerk to the Defence Committee but who was nominated as the Clerk to the Select Committee on the Bill as his first clerkship of a Select Committee. He has carried his job through exceptionally well, not only in briefing me and other members of the Committee, but in preparing the draft report, which was first-class.
Mr. George:
Having heard those last remarks of the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers), I am not so sure that I would have been happy to join him in a Blackhawk if I had known that it was to do service to the Government Whips Office. However, our journey was expedited by the cavalry, who came to the rescue--leaving a rather forlorn American-built, but RAF-owned, Chinook on the runway in eastern Tuzla. I experienced some horror in Bosnia when I switched on an old television set and saw Question Time live. That was probably the worst thing I saw during four days in the former Yugoslavia.
Having heard the debate of the past two hours, I have mixed feelings about volunteering to serve on the Select Committee. The procedure reinforced my view that a Select Committee approach is preferable to a Standing Committee approach. Although not everyone will agree with the consensual approach that we are obliged to take on defence issues, I am pleased that the consensus has largely returned on most security issues in the House and, to a great extent, in the country as a whole.
I am sorry that the Select Committee on Defence has not assumed responsibility for dealing with this quinquennial legislation, but we did the next best thing by having four members of that Select Committee, including the Chairman, on the Select Committee on the Bill. The combined approach of part Select Committee and part Standing Committee allows the special Select Committee to do what cannot be done in a Standing Committee environment, which is almost invariably non-consensual. It allows the Select Committee to discuss in detail the rationale, if there is one, behind a series of policies emanating from the Ministry of Defence.
By taking the Select Committee approach, we can exert more influence on the Ministry of Defence instead of allowing a Minister, with his aides behind him and his loyalists endorsing him, to railroad any old policy through a Standing Committee. That appears to be the normal approach to many pieces of legislation. It is a shame that the Government and the Opposition do not connive more frequently to approach legislation in a way more like the Select Committees.
The Select Committee was able to exert an influence over the daft policy of selling or leasing Greenwich naval college and, in that sense, the whole exercise was worth while. It was also very important that we provided a forum for discussion of the Commission for Racial Equality's report on the Household Cavalry, which put more pressure than there would otherwise have been on the Ministry of Defence. As someone who has served for many years on the Defence Committee, I recall time and again trying to enthuse the Ministry of Defence, through the Committee, about ethnic monitoring. The Ministry had its fall coming to it. Remarkably, it was not a parliamentary Committee that put pressure on the Government; it required an external body--the Commission for Racial Equality. The Select Committee provided a forum for that report and never was a fall more deserved, swifter or more full than that embarrassing climbdown by the Government. It really taught them.
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