| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Duncan Smith: My right hon. and learned Friend's speech is very helpful in throwing light on the subject. I do
not know whether he is aware that, in the other place, the Government were asked time and time again, even by the tabling of an amendment, about active service. They failed point blank to answer the question that my right hon. and learned Friend is asking, but I agree that the point is extremely important because the Government assume too much from peacetime circumstances.
Sir Nicholas Lyell: Certainly my reading of the debate was that a proper answer had not been given, and I am most grateful for my hon. Friend's confirmation. I specifically ask the Minister to deal with the matter one way or the other. If the Government have no answer, let him say so. We will not say, "Yah-boo." We will say that this is a problem that points out genuine difficulties with the convention that we, along with our allies and other partners in convention states, must settle down to tackle. It would be possible, in theory, for us to renounce the convention and apply to rejoin, but it would be an enormous political step to take. It would cause huge upheaval and concern, and there should be better ways of dealing with the problem.
I have said before, when referring to the convention that, in so far as one seeks to use it as a constitution, it suffers huge flaws compared with the American constitution, for example. At least the American constitution can be amended by the American nation. The European convention can be amended only by common agreement of all its rising 40 different members, and that is extraordinarily difficult to obtain. In the context of the Bill, it is necessary for the Government to find a way whereby operational efficiency will not be seriously damaged by the legalisms--I use that expression advisedly--and the legal stratagems that this kind of amendment is, to some extent, making necessary.
As for the £9 million, or £6.5 million, or whatever it is, it is unfortunate that we should have to get rid of a battalion, or at least not to have an extra one, if that is what an extra battalion costs in pay. However, the problem goes much deeper than that, although I do not shrug off the extra cost. The problem focuses on how in practice commanding officers are to be expected to deal with the matter and how the armed forces will accept the discipline of a commanding officer.
I listened with great interest to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) about the disadvantages of rushing off to court martial. My military service was very brief; I am just old enough to have been a national service man. I will not say that it is a dying breed, but it is an ageing one. I remember doing commanding officer's orders--I was assistant adjutant. The system was understood and respected, and it worked very well within those communities. However, it does not fulfil the requirements of the technicalities of the European convention. We can live with that in Aldershot or Colchester, at a certain cost. We must bend our mind to find practical solutions to the very real problems that will arise in times of active service. The Bill as drafted does not do that, and we should demonstrate our concern in the Lobby.
6.12 pm
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): It is quite intimidating to speak in this debate on defence when so many eloquent people have spoken before me. I am following a former Attorney-General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire
(Sir N. Lyell) and the quality of his speech indicated just that. The only speech from the Labour Back Benches came from the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence. A number of members of that Committee have already spoken. I shall therefore confine myself to just one aspect of the Bill, about which I am greatly concerned.
- "the proceedings of live television links or similar arrangements, including the use of such a link or other arrangement as a means of satisfying the requirement"
In the other place, the Minister, Baroness Symons said:
- "It is important to remember that time moves on. The services are fully capable of exploiting successive advances in technology, which they already deploy with great success."
In what she went on to say, Baroness Symons displayed a certain naivety, as the Government often do. They think of a good marketing idea, but never quite think through the consequences. She said:
- "Video technology is in day-to-day use. It was in constant use throughout the recent crisis in Kosovo"--
- "The armed services see no reason why that technology should not be deployed equally successfully in other operational environments and for purposes such as those envisaged in the Bill."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 December 1999; Vol. 608, c. 351.]
Let us consider some of the practical difficulties, which I believe will hinder the workings of justice. The Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) referred to the importance of the "circumstances and demeanour" of the case being transmitted to those in courts martial. I agree.
No matter how broad band a transmission may be, it is impossible to convey the body language that is so necessary when someone is giving evidence. It was suggested earlier in the debate that wide-angle lenses could be used, to ensure that there was no sergeant major gently prodding the witness not to say certain things, or perhaps to say certain things.
However, the use of a wide-angle lens, even with a broad band transmission on 625 lines, possibly with a 4.5 MHz band width--I throw that in merely to demonstrate that at least on this narrow topic, I know what I am talking about--will not allow the person's facial expressions to be seen, let alone body movements and all the other elements that are important when evidence is given.
Mr. Bermingham: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we use video links every day in the criminal courts, in
children's cases and others? There is increasing use of visual evidence by television and visual links in civil cases. That is to be encouraged. Why should the armed services be any different?
Mr. Fabricant: As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is within the United Kingdom. It does not involve distance.
Mr. Bermingham indicated dissent.
Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman wonders about the relevance of that. I shall shortly explain. Even if he does not understand the difficulty of distance and satellites, I should have thought that the Government would. If they do not, they need not worry, as I shall elucidate.
Mr. Blunt: In his remarks, will my hon. Friend explain how video-conferencing will work under conditions of radio silence?
Mr. Fabricant: My hon. Friend tempts me to jump ahead in what I had planned to say. Of course, it would be impossible to have a satellite link, and impractical to have a fibre optic link, because even in conditions of radio silence, we all know that there are ways of tapping into fibre links. My hon. Friend, who is closely involved with the armed forces, raises a valuable point.
Where there is no radio silence order, will the person giving evidence be concerned about interception? When a broad band link is used, it is not easy to encrypt it in such a way that it cannot be decoded by others. We know that in Kosovo, to which Baroness Symons referred, the signals were intercepted. Those were not court cases, as the Bill had not been enacted at that stage, but have the Government, and more importantly, have the armed forces considered the consequences of broadcasting in an environment where the interview may be intercepted? I think possibly not. That would be particularly dangerous.
The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) asked why distance was relevant, but it is highly relevant. A court martial in Belize would require up to two satellite links. No matter how advanced we become, there is one absolute, which no scientist has yet been able to break, and that is the speed of light. With two satellite jumps, a signal from Belize would take in the order of 1.25 seconds to reach the United Kingdom, and the return signal a further 1.25 seconds--a 2.5 second delay.
The hon. Gentleman and Ministers are old enough to remember satellite telephone conversations. They were impossible. Nowadays, when one telephones the United States or even Australia, more often than not the connection is made by fibre optic narrow band cable. That travels at the speed of light. Light travels at about 186,000 miles a second, and the circumference of the earth is about 23,000 miles, so that takes a tiny fraction of a second. But when one uses satellite, which one has to do when using broad band television links, the distances are far greater.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |