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2.8 pm
Mr. Robert Key (Salisbury): I beg to move, To leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
- "this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Armed Forces Discipline Bill [Lords] because it adds unnecessary administrative burdens and costs to Her Majesty's Forces, proposes hasty and impractical solutions to the administration of military law for forces on active service, transfers to civilians powers which rightly lie with the chain of military command, and, furthermore, because it fails to address urgent issues affecting the fundamental human rights of military personnel and their dependants, including deficiencies in the provision of legal aid and delays in the processes of military law, such as redress of grievance procedures, and because it has the effect of postponing yet again both consolidation of the Army, Navy and Air Force Discipline Acts and consideration of a single tri-service Discipline Act."
Almost exactly two years ago, on 16 February 1998, I visited Trenchard Lines at Upavon, the headquarters of the Adjutant-General, for a briefing by the director of personnel services for the Army and others on the Army disciplinary system and the challenges that it was facing. Those challenges included personal behaviour and issues such as homosexuality, mixed-sex postings on increasingly purple operational tours and the consequences of changes to the service discipline Acts as a result of the Armed Forces Act 1996. They included also the anticipated changes that would be forced on the services as a result of European Court judgments and the proposals to incorporate the European convention on human rights into domestic law.
I was reminded of that last month, when I was visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels, when we drove past the site of the battle of Waterloo. The connection is that, in his briefing to me--which was clearly exceptional, because I can still remember it--the director of personnel services, then Brigadier Peter Curry, opened the day by reminding me that the Army exists to engage in war. He pointed out that Napoleon said "The moral is to the physical as three is to one." It is a good soundbite, and I am glad that he said it. He also learned the truth of it the hard way when he lost the battle of Waterloo. There are many reasons for that defeat, including Wellington's superior knowledge of the lack of undergrowth in the woods thereabouts, which was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith). Above all, Napoleon underestimated the moral strength of the British and their allies.
Morale arises from conviction in what we are doing and confidence in our leaders. Anything that undermines that conviction and confidence leads to a breakdown of trust. As Brigadier Curry put it, conviction and confidence are held together with the glue of discipline.
The first priority must be confidence in the chain of command. That is particularly important in the Army. Land operations are very different from naval and air operations: there is more friction, operations take longer, every soldier carries a weapon and must use it.
During the course of that briefing, I was struck by the open-mindedness of those tasked with the challenges facing the Army. There was a great deal of new thinking in the military community. There was also a recognition of the tri-service differences. That was manifest in the tri-service working group, which had discovered that it had to rely on logic rather than prejudice when it ran into inevitable differences of ethos and working practices between the three services. The very small number of dedicated men and women of all three services who have squared up to those intractable problems deserve our congratulations and thanks. A great deal has been achieved.
Two years ago, the Army had promised a new standards of discipline paper. Ministers, service chiefs and lawyers were wringing their hands, and who can blame them? That is why it is a triumph that, two years on, the chiefs of the defence staff have been able to introduce a code of social conduct in the armed forces which sets out a revised policy for all three services on personal relationships involving service personnel. The ultimate test is the service test which, quite rightly, focuses not on political correctness but on the operational effectiveness of the services. The test is short and straightforward: have the actions or behaviour of an individual adversely impacted, or are they likely to impact, on the efficiency or operational effectiveness of the service? As my hon. Friend said when the Secretary of State announced that change, we cannot be sure whether the test will work, nor of the effect that it will have on operational effectiveness, and we will therefore ask the chiefs of staff to review the effects of the introduction of the service test.
It was clear to us that the Government were reluctantly pushed into making this change. What else could explain the change in tone of the Labour party from Opposition to Government? Many of us were present at the Report stage of the Armed Forces Bill on 9 May 1996, when the then hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid)--now Secretary of State for Scotland--who was leading for the Labour Opposition, said of the Currie amendment to lift the ban on homosexuals in the forces:
- "There are logical, objective grounds for qualifying what is a very valuable civil right to preserve effectiveness. However, it is honourable and legitimate to say that the weight of the civil liberties argument is sufficiently great to overcome both the operational reduction in effectiveness and the case for privacy for heterosexuals. There is nothing dishonourable in making that balance and in arriving at a judgment that is different from mine, but the Labour Members of the Select Committee were not persuaded that that change was necessary."
- "Whatever happens, the people who will then be asked by us to remain the ultimate defender of both those liberties and those lives will be the men and women of our British armed forces."--[Official Report, 9 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 503-05.]
Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South): And me.
Mr. Key: And the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), of course, along with many others.
I only wish that such focus and clarity were identifiable in the Government's attempt to incorporate into the three service Acts the consequences of putting the European convention on human rights into domestic law. It is because they have not made a sufficiently compelling case, either today or in another place, that I shall invite the House to vote for our reasoned amendment.
In another place, one by one, the noble and gallant Lords expressed their dismay. Field Marshal Lord Carver said on 16 December 1999:
- "I contend that the present system under the Army and Air Force Acts is perfectly fair and can be defended in the courts as consistent with the convention."
Mr. Key: On Third Reading, as the Minister will recall, most of the noble and gallant Lords who had spoken in the debate, having had a jolly good Christmas, stayed away. Nevertheless, I shall come to that.
Field Marshal Lord Bramall said:
- "More is being put into this Bill than is strictly necessary for compliance."
- "The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, put the matter very clearly; there is much provision in the Bill which is unnecessary. To put the proposition round the other way . . . which precise articles of the convention does the existing regime--the discipline Acts--breach?"
- "We need to consider what would happen if we did not make these changes. Failure to do so would render the system for service discipline vulnerable to challenge in our domestic courts. The risk of frequent and successful challenges to the system would create an untenable position. That would undermine service discipline and the authority of the commanding officer."
- "At that point, the disciplinary system would certainly lose credibility, as would commanding officers."
The arguments did not convince the noble and gallant Lords. Field Marshal Lord Carver went on to say:
- "I am sorry to say that the Minister used somewhat extravagant language: that the CO's judgment would be open to constant challenge by the courts. I do not believe that it would. The existing Army and Royal Air Force legislation is perfectly fair. The man has his choice when he knows the decision of the commanding officer. To force the individual to make up his mind prior to that is less fair and less just.
I hope that the Minister will think again on the issue. There is talk that the chiefs think that the provision is marvellous; I know that they do not. They seek to make the best of a bad job."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 December 1999; Vol. 608, c.366-72.]
- "As has been said many times, the Bill will slow and confuse the administration of justice; it will undermine the authority of the commanding officer; it will be extremely difficult to administer, particularly on active service; and it will greatly add to the workload of the commanding officer and the various staffs involved at a time when they are already extremely stretched."
- "However, as yet no specific breach of any article of the convention has been identified which requires this massive amendment to the service discipline Acts."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 January 2000; Vol.608, c. 989-95.]
- "My hon. Friends in another place, who have yet to have the opportunity to debate the Bill, recognise the timing problem, but are far from happy about the way in which the Bill has been framed. Irrespective of what is resolved today in this House, they are likely to argue against it in principle."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2000; Vol.608, c.1340.]
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