Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1272
- 1279)
WEDNESDAY 15 DECEMBER 2004
RT HON
ADAM INGRAM
MP, COLONEL DAVID
ECCLES AND
MR MARTIN
FULLER
Q1272 Chairman:
Minister, welcome to the final public evidence session in our
Duty of Care Inquiry, although we shall be continuing hopefully
to produce a report in March and should there be any need for
further public evidence sessions, of course, Minister we will
seek your support and help on that. We have taken a great deal
of evidence over the months and we will be putting to you some
of the issues that have arisen during the inquiry. The aim of
this inquiry has been to examine how the Armed Forces look after
their people at the very beginning of their service and, as we
have said repeatedly since the very outset of this inquiry, we
are not looking at specific cases and we are certainly not a substitute
for the Police or the judicial process. There has been some speculation
following the evidence we took from the Deepcut families and others
last week that we should call for Commanding Officers from Deepcut
Barracks to give evidence. As I have said, this Committee is not
the corporate body to undertake such a quasi-judicial investigation
into the deaths at Deepcut. The Committee this afternoon has considered
the request from those families and we have confirmed our decision
not to attempt to replicate the role of either the Police or the
Coroner. We have decided therefore not to call those Commanding
Officers to give oral evidence to the Committee. There may be
other occasions where they will be requested to speak but it will
not be from this Committee. I know this will disappoint some people
and some of the families but, as I have said twice this afternoon,
Minister, ladies and gentlemen, we are not in the business of
becoming lawyers. We have more than enough to do within the terms
of reference we set ourselves and we are determined to produce
a good report, one which will be seen as being very fair and which
will make a number of proposals for changes should this be necessary.
Before I ask the first question, Mr Ingram, are there any introductory
remarks you wish to make?
Mr Ingram: First
of all I would like to introduce Colonel David Eccles, who is
the Chief of Staff, Army Training and Recruitment Agency, and
on my right Mr Martin Fuller, who is Director of Service Policy,
Service Conditions, and of course on any policy detail those are
perhaps the best people to deal with that. I would like to begin
by saying that I welcome this opportunity to give evidence to
the Committee this afternoon. I have clearly been following the
progress of your inquiry into the duty of care within the initial
training systems of the Armed Forces. I am fully conscious of
the very high profile which initial training in the Armed Forces
has at present. This is an important issue and I know that the
Committee has visited extensively, interviewed widely and received
much written material from the MoD and other parties, and I look
forward to your report. Before answering your questions I think
it might be helpful to make some general points as context. First,
as I am sure you recognise, it is important to appreciate that
initial training provides an essential foundation element of military
capability. The success of our Armed Forces, often with people
who have only recently completed initial training, is testament
to the quality of that training, but the initial training is only
one of a number of elements which make up military capability.
The MoD's purpose is to maximise the overall capability within
the resources available. Striking the right balance is not always
easy to achieve and this Committee has not been slow in identifying
areas where you think it could have been done differently. What
we in the MoD have to do is achieve the right balance between
competing priorities, such as between frontline capability, initial
training, exercises, equipment and so forth. I would suggest the
allocation of resources to initial training should be viewed in
this context. The second point I would make is that there have
been significant changes since 2002, but I would stress that this
does not mean that the system was not working before then. If
that were the case we would not have seen the operational success
which we have in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq.
That said, there was and is need for change. That was why I tasked
the Director of Operational Capability to conduct a cross-cutting
review of initial training across all three of the Armed Services.
Not all of his report made easy reading, but it has been published
and the recommendations form the basis of an action plan which
has been largely met. In order to maintain the momentum of change
I commissioned reappraisals which reported in July last year and
October this year. Again, these have been published. The Army
also compiled a Learning Account, set up in December 2002, all
of whose recommendations have been implemented or are in hand.
In addition, and in order to provide an external audit, I commissioned
the Adult Learning Inspectorate, a wholly independent organisation,
to audit the initial training regime with particular emphasis
on duty of care issues. I know you have taken evidence from them
and you will have formed your own judgements on their qualities
and independence. Hopefully you can agree that it is not possible
to guarantee that no further tragedy or unacceptable incidents
will occur. However, I would hope that you can recognise that
these measures represent substantive and genuine action, which
are accountable, auditable and open, the overall aim of which
is to drive up standards and to seek continual improvement. However,
notwithstanding this work, I do recognise the need for public
reassurance and that is why I announced today the independent
review by Nicholas Blake QC into the circumstances surrounding
the four deaths at Deepcut between 1995 and 2002. At present I
am not persuaded of the case for a public inquiry, either into
events at Deepcut or, as some are urging, into all non-combatant
deaths. I expect Mr Blake to provide an intensive, wholly independent
and authoritative analysis of all relevant matters relating to
the four tragic deaths at Deepcut. His report will be published
in the first half of next year, and the MoD will publish their
response to it. I would like to close this statement by paying
tribute once again to those men and women within the training
organisation. The quality of the many thousands of trained personnel
that have turned out over the years have been tested time and
time again and have not been found wanting. I would ask that you
do not lose sight of this fact.
Q1273 Chairman:
Thank you very much, Minister. Given that your statement on 30
November referred at length to the allegations of abuse at Deepcut
barracks as outlined in the Surrey Police's evidence to this Committee
why have you today announced a review of the circumstances surrounding
the deaths of four soldiers at Deepcut between 1995 and 2002?
Mr Ingram: Why
did I announce what I have announced today?
Q1274 Chairman:
The deaths, but there are widespread allegations of misconduct
and bullying. Will that be within the terms of evidence of the
inquiry or is it just being confined to the deaths of four soldiers?
Mr Ingram: You
have also then got to read what Mr Blake himself has said and
he has issued a statement on the back of mine and you may or may
not have seen that.
Q1275 Chairman:
No, we have not seen that.
Mr Ingram: I will
not read all of it but he has said that obviously his review is
not a public inquiry and it does not set out a fresh investigation
of the facts but it is a review of all the relevant material.
It importantly says, "However, it may be that fresh lines
of inquiry will emerge from an analysis of the material".
The way I have done it is not to be restrictive, to make it in
one sense as open as possible. You have to contain it in some
ways but we have not said, "You cannot go there, you cannot
do this". He has complete autonomy in what he does, who he
sees and, of course, how he reports. I would not read anything
in that sense into the terms of reference we have given, certainly
not in the way in which he has then, quite correctly, interpreted
them, and I think it is appropriate that he has interpreted them
in that way.
Q1276 Chairman:
A few weeks ago there was an alleged leak of a document which
was evidence submitted to us by the Surrey Police, and to the
best of my knowledge it was not leaked at all but it had been
made public. The fact that the journalist making the programme
had not come across it is not our responsibility but the Surrey
Police did identify a large number of allegations. Will the inquiry
look at the allegations or will it look at what the Surrey Police
did in the face of the allegations?
Mr Ingram: Again, that really
is a matter for Mr Blake. As I have said, I am not being prescriptive;
I am not being restrictive. I am being prescriptive in one sense
in giving him terms of reference but we are not being restrictive
in the application of the way in which that will then be interpreted
and looked at by him. Clearly, he is going into this cold. He
does not have the experience and the knowledge base that all of
us share because of the intensity with which we have been looking
at these things. He will read himself into all of the material
and bring his sharp mind to it and he may alight on something
that he then wants to look at. There is no doubt in my mind at
all that Surrey Police will fully co-operate with him. Obviously,
they are restricted in terms of some of the criminal investigations
that they are dealing with, and indeed the Coroner's inquest may
be restrictive as well because he cannot intrude upon other processes
in all of this. He has to be mindful of those legal processes
out there. I am sure he will work his way through that and with
both the MoD's full co-operation and Surrey Police's everything
is available to him in that sense.
Q1277 Chairman:
So in a way—and forgive me if I am wrong—he will be
looking at whether the Surrey Police's lines of inquiry, the people
they interviewed and the depth of the interviews were appropriate
or not? If he is not looking at fresh evidence or interviewing
people, in essence he is looking at the Surrey inquiry.
Mr Ingram: In the
way in which he says that there may be fresh lines of inquiry
which will emerge from an analysis of the material, I think that
is an important phrase. He is obviously giving himself space and
distance in this. He does not know what will be said to him. People
may come forward that have not come forward before, and obviously
we have been seeking to encourage anyone who has any information
about those events to come forward and will continue to do so.
Whether it is then a matter for a subsequent criminal investigation
conducted by, in this case, the Surrey Police, or by the Ministry
of Defence Police is important. We have got to bottom this out.
If wrongdoing has taken place, irrespective of whether in a sense
that may or may not have an impact on each or any of those individual
tragic deaths, we may uncover other issues so that then a proper
investigation has to be carried out either by the Police or by
the Military Police. We just do not know where this is going in
that sense and that should be encouraging to everyone. I expect
that also he will do all of this in private, but that is a matter
for him. He has got to answer for how he does this. It just seems
to me that if he does it that way it may encourage people to come
forward because they have got that capacity to do so in confidence.
Part of the problem we have, of course, is that, as you say, there
is that so-called leaked document. There is nothing more infuriating
than that something is out there in the public domain which really
the MoD were working away with the Surrey Police to try to bottom
out, to give substance to, and suddenly there comes some shock
headline as if it is some new dramatic story. It is a reflection
on those who try to whip up a feeding frenzy on this, exploiting
a whole lot of grief and pain out there and giving no recognition
to the intensive work that is going on either by the Surrey Police
or, in this case, the MoD as well to try and bottom out these
matters. Of course, what the Surrey Police said that was important
in terms of that particular document with the 173 allegations,
and they made it very clear, and I quote again, was, "It
is important to point out that to a great extent the witness recollection
is uncorroborated and untested and thus any examples cited should
be treated with necessary and appropriate caution. Many of the
examples have not been formally investigated this time as the
details were given more as background information as opposed to
specific allegations". What we asked them to do was then
to provide us with the details, the names of those people who
had made these allegations. They have them; we do not have them,
and only two names were prepared to come forward. There may be
reasons for that but we then have to find another way to try and
surface that concern and those issues.
Q1278 Chairman:
So presumably he will be looking at these allegations?
Mr Ingram: As I
say, it is a matter for him.
Q1279 Chairman:
What kind of staff support is he going to have?
Mr Ingram: That
has not been determined. He will get what he requires and he will
be given quality people to work alongside him, not in any way
to manage the situation but simply to give him that administrative
back-up. He is making it very clear that he will work from his
chambers. The full structure has not been worked out. I think
also in his statement he says that he has still to establish a
secretariat. That will not be a problem. Anything he asks for
he will be provided with. The important thing here is that it
will be independent of the MoD. There may be MoD secretariat support
if he so requires it but it is for him to decide.
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