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4.49 pm
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, deplored the fact that, having tabled a reasoned amendment on the Order Paper, we were treating the Bill in a strictly non-bipartisan way. I argue that when these disciplinary provisions are manifestly damaging to service discipline, we are duty bound to do as we have done. The hon. Gentleman was a lone, siren voice--although, looking at him, I am not sure whether he has the physiognomy of a siren; nor is he, unlike the sirens, among a fair collectivity.
I have the problem of following three speeches of rare distinction. One was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt). How fortunate we are to have the
benefit of his recent military experience. The speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd) benefited from his ministerial outlook and fair-mindedness. He has the characteristic typical of Home Office training of trying to judge whether the measure will work in practice. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers), my predecessor and successor as Chairman of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, also spoke. Like him, I deplore the fact, as does Her Majesty's Opposition in general, that we have not had pre-legislative scrutiny of this measure. The pre-legislative Select Committee is an invaluable procedure, especially for service matters.The House today has a paucity of expertise on service issues. It was not so when I first came to the House. We tried to remedy the deficiency with the armed forces parliamentary scheme but, in a sense, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The wartime experience of the generation that I met when I first came to the House would have been invaluable. Luckily, the other place has not been reformed root and branch. We still have the contributions of the former chiefs of staff and other people with long military experience.
In concept, the Bill is wrong. The very idea of human rights for the armed forces is, per se, a delusion. People joining the armed forces forswear their human rights. They do not have human rights. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate put it, they sign a blank cheque. They are then subject to discipline, and this is the overriding consideration for the rest of their life in uniform.
Mr. Hancock: Does not the hon. Gentleman have difficulty getting his head round the suggestion that people joining the United Kingdom armed forces forgo their human rights, yet are expected to travel the world defending other people's human rights? Many of our soldiers, men and women, are putting their lives on the line as he speaks, defending human rights. Surely the House has a responsibility to defend theirs.
Mr. Wilkinson: It is not so much a question of abstractions or what is written in conventions. Human rights are a function of individual example and behaviour. That is what has characterised our armed forces. The commanding officer sets the pattern and the example. He imposes the discipline because earlier in his career, he was subject to discipline. A good commanding officer will not ask his men to do anything that he cannot do himself. That is the groundwork of good discipline. It is not a question of conventions.
Sir Nicholas Lyell: I am listening most carefully to my hon. Friend, and I think that I know what he is getting at. Would he agree that perhaps it could be put like this? People joining the armed forces do not necessarily forswear all their human rights, but they expect to have a legal framework that takes account of the need for human rights legislation to adapt itself to the requirements of good order and military discipline necessary for the operation of any armed forces.
Mr. Wilkinson: Exactly so. I now understand why my right hon. and learned Friend is deemed learned in this place.
We must consider the matter in a contemporary context. That was an important factor in making the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate so telling. We must
judge the Bill in the context of the armed forces' lack of resources, the constant diminution of their regular and reserve manpower, and the growing technology gap vis-a-vis the Americans, which was plain to see in the Kosovo war.Those deficiencies can be redressed to some degree by the very best discipline and training. The moral quality always transcends the material in warfare. It behoves us to pass measures that enhance our capability through an effective disciplinary system in the armed forces, rather than degrading it.
We should follow the example of the Spartans or the Prussians in placing discipline and training first. The Prime Minister had a phrase at the general election--"education, education, education". For the armed forces, it must be training, training, training and drill, drill, drill, so that the response is instinctive and the reaction to command is unquestioning.
Those are not attributes which flow naturally from the litigiousness inherent in the Bill. It encourages litigiousness and, in the armed forces, that can easily become insubordination. If a service man questions the judgment of his commanding officer in a summary case, or believes that his commanding officer is wrong in allocating a particular sentence to him, he demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect for his qualities as a leader, an individual and an officer.
Mr. Keetch: Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the commander of British land forces in Kosovo, General Sir Michael Jackson, was right to question the authority of his commanding officer, General Wesley Clark, in connection with the Russian takeover of the airport at Pristina?
Mr. Wilkinson: I am in no position to comment on the operational decisions of general officers commanding in the field. It would be ludicrous for me to do so, but I always have sympathy for senior officers who have Nelsonian flair.
The idea of summary appeal courts is wrong and I bitterly regret it. I also regret the idea that people can opt for a court martial before they even have a summary hearing. It is utterly wrong, too, that after a 48-hour period of detention, judicial officers should be able to overrule the judgment of a commanding officer.
My intervention early in the debate was belittled, but in the field, in operational circumstances, it may be absolutely necessary to keep someone in detention for 48 hours or more. There may be no alternative. It is wrong that in such circumstances the commanding officer should have to refer to a judicial officer.
The Bill is a thoroughly retrograde piece of legislation. I presume that it is intended to last, but thank God we have the opportunity to review it in the usual quinquennial process when the three armed service Acts are reviewed next year.
We should recognise, first, that the training periods for our personnel are now shorter than they have ever been. The time taken to go through Sandhurst and the training schools is far shorter than it used to be.
Secondly, more work is being put upon the Territorial Army. For example, formed units are to go out to Kosovo. That is good, but reserve soldiers, sailors and airmen do not have the training background of regulars.
Lastly, the Bill may well have to apply to conscripts. We cannot for ever assume that our troops will have only a peacekeeping role and be engaged in humanitarian operations.
The profession of arms is a wholly unnatural process. It makes wholly exceptional demands upon those who embrace it. Therefore, we must understand that we are legislating for war as well as for all the lower gradations of potential conflict, peacekeeping and so on. In so doing, we are diminishing the capability of our armed forces to operate as effective fighting formations. I regret the legislation and I shall vote against it.
5 pm
Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South): I had not expected to speak today. My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) was due to speak on behalf of the Liberal Democrats and he did so in an exemplary way. He said that the legislation was needed to bring us into line with our allies and that we had to live up to our obligations; but as the debate progressed it became slightly surreal. Some hon. Members were unable to come up with the worst-case scenario for which they were suggesting we had to legislate. It is bizarre that hon. Members should criticise a Bill without being able readily to identify the issue that they are addressing.
I am proud to be a member of the Defence Committee. I enjoyed the speech of its Chairman, the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), and that of the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt). I did not much enjoy his contribution in the Select Committee because his 54 questions turned on virtually the same point and were repetitive. Had the Chairman been a little less generous, he might have shut him up. We were all becoming a little bored because the hon. Gentleman was hammering home the same point. He would have done justice to a Jack Russell terrier or the SAS on a difficult operation. However, today's debate proves conclusively that blood can be squeezed from a stone.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: That is why the hon. Gentleman is speaking.
Mr. Hancock: If we have to be here until 7 o'clock, we might as well join in.
I read the Bill with great interest, but I have strong reservations about it. I listened with great interest to at least two of the four debates in the other place on the Bill and the contributions of some of the distinguished former chiefs of staff. So far no one has come up with a reason why they backed off. They were sure that the Bill was wrong but, when push came to shove, they did not pursue the matter to a vote. At the end of the day, they did not clearly support the line being pursued by the current Chief of the Defence Staff who said that to attempt to embody in the Bill a distinction between normal and active service
circumstances was unnecessary and would quite probably be counter-productive, and therefore would not be welcomed by the services themselves.
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