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One of the most important points about the Bill is the way in which it has been considered. The Select Committee procedure has been hugely beneficial, and the Committee so found in its report and recommended that the Government should consider applying the technique to other Bills. I have no doubt, seeing in her place the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), who participated
assiduously in our proceedings, that it was extremely beneficial to all of us, however much experience we had of the military. We all took away a huge amount from the opportunity of being able to cross-examine people before us and make the visits. The Committee was better informed as a result. We may not all have heard the same things or interpreted what we heard in quite the same way, but the fact that we made those visits and held those proceedings was beneficial.
It was always difficult for the Opposition given that the service chiefs had all signed up to the legislation. It ill behoves an acting pilot officer to question the Chief of the Air Staff, let alone the Chief of the Defence Staff, about whether he has got it right or not, but I would be quite interested to know in exactly how much detail each of the defence chiefs read the legislation.
As I have said, the Opposition’s approach was to look at the Bill from the point of view of how it will affect our armed forces on the front line, not so much how they will deal with discipline at home in Aldershot or Colchester. The debate about the chain of command and the power of commanding officers illustrated our genuine concerns about the administration of discipline, particularly where servicemen and women are felt to have acted outside the rules of engagement.
It is good news that the Government have accepted the need for annual renewal. I thank the hon. Member for Islwyn for having acceded to that change, which is incorporated in the Bill. That welcome provision will give the House an opportunity to revisit how the changes are bedding down.
The Minister has referred to the Bill’s tri-service nature, which is widely accepted as being the desirable way to go. However, one of the things that came out of our visits to Cyprus, Oman and Iraq is that each of the armed forces fights differently and has an individual ethos. Paragraph 39 on page 13 of the Committee’s report makes the important point that
“The way each Service fights is different and the Bill needs to accommodate those differences”.
We want to see everything in terms of joint operations, but that is not necessarily the case, because, as an old boy has said, many sailors will never work alongside a soldier or airman throughout their whole military career. Some of those differences came out during our visits, and I hope that the Minister will reflect on how the Bill can be made to fit the individual service ethos—the desire of the chiefs to make the default position on courts martial panels single service is a good starting point.
The Opposition have also taken the view that this body of military law is essential. We agree with the Judge Advocate General that the military should be governed by completely different law from that which applies to civilians. I hope that we have managed to accommodate the changes to civilian law to the extent that they will not damage the operational effectiveness of the armed forces.
As a sideswipe at the European convention on human rights, I was concerned to be told during our proceedings in Select Committee that although the Bill is compatible with the ECHR, that is no bar to further challenges. I personally take the view that the
European Court of Human Rights should have nothing to do with how the United Kingdom disposes of its armed forces. The protection of the members of our armed forces and their arrangements should be exclusively a matter for this Parliament and not for some court composed of a collection of foreigners. I feel very strongly about that matter.
The test which we must apply to our deliberations over the past few months is whether we have provided our armed forces with a legal framework that will do them the justice that they undoubtedly deserve. There is not an hon. Member in this House, even among those who have spoken against the war in Iraq, who has anything other than unbounded admiration for our armed forces, and I hope that we have fashioned a law that will help them, protect them and enable them to do their magnificent work on behalf of the entire nation.
I shall conclude with the military covenant, which is quoted on page 6 of our report and which sets out the Army’s doctrine:
“Soldiers differ from civilian employees because success in military operations, when the price of failure may be death, requires the subordination of the rights of the individual to the needs of the task and the team, albeit within a legal framework.”
I hope that we have discharged our responsibility to the men and women of our armed forces to their satisfaction.
9.34 pm
Mr. Touhig: I know the Armed Forces Bill as an old friend, having taken it through its Committee stages with a number of colleagues. In rising to speak from the Back Benches, I feel a little like the ghost of Christmas past.
Let me begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on his appointment. I know that he will do an excellent job. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will agree that having come into the job at such short notice he has done a very good job during today’s debate. While I pass on the baton of Veterans Minister with considerable regret, I am happy to hand over to my hon. Friend some of the work in the red boxes. I am grateful to him and to other Members for their kind comments about my time as Minister, particularly so far as this Bill is concerned. I am conscious that the first contribution from a recently retired Minister may at times be an uncomfortable experience for those on the Front Bench, but I can put my hon. Friends at ease. I will enjoy my freedom from the security of collective responsibility by making it plain that I wholeheartedly support the Bill.
With the strategic defence review in 1998, the Government recognised that we needed a single system of service law for today’s armed forces. Our forces increasingly train and operate together, and they need a modern system of justice that reflects that. The Bill is the result of years of hard and dedicated work, and the services themselves have been at the centre of its development. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Defence said on Second Reading that this is a Bill that has at its centre the armed forces themselves. In that sense, it is a Bill for the armed forces. It has their full support, primarily because it meets their needs in a way that has been absent for some time.
I turn to the way in which the Bill has been handled, as referred to by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth). I should like to add my thanks to the Bill team for their professional and dedicated support. When I was Minister, I knew at first hand that they did a tremendous job and that that was not often recognised enough. The special Select Committee procedure is a regular feature of the quinquennial review of service discipline. As has been demonstrated, it has been an outstandingly successful arrangement for the House. The evidence taken by the Committee, in what we might term the Select Committee stage, gave Members the opportunity better to understand the purposes behind the Bill.
The combination of that expert testimony and line-by-line scrutiny in Committee means that this Bill has been considered in a far greater depth than many others. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), who chaired the Committee with his customary blend of patience and purpose. He was ably assisted by the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), who has served on several special Select Committees considering service legislation. Indeed, his experience led me at one stage to consider asking him to join the Bill team, because I thought that he would make a considerable contribution. I join with all Members in wishing him a speedy recovery and return to the House.
In Committee and in the early debates in the House and today, as well as in the media, I fear that we have heard a great deal of nonsense about our armed forces being under some sort of legal siege that is affecting the chain of command and blighting operational effectiveness. To me, “legal siege” is a loose, vague, woolly and wholly misleading term. As a concept it lacks intellectual rigour, and as a description it lacks a grounding in fact. I do not mean to say that certain perceptions do not exist in some quarters, although when reading some of the newspaper reports I am reminded of Nye Bevan, who, when asked whether he read the newspapers, said that of course he did because it was his one continuous source of fiction.
I consider the so-called legal siege to be a mirage. The former Chief of the Defence Staff, the noble and gallant Lord Boyce, who has been much quoted today, could not give a single real example of how this intangible concept is supposedly affecting operational effectiveness. During the Select Committee stage, when asked by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), the then Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Michael Walker, gave the same reply:
“If you ask me to give you a physical concrete example, I cannot.”
I would remind Members of some wise words that we heard in the Committee’s hearings, which I quoted earlier:
“I am sure that we all could play a better role in trying to dampen down this particular worry, and people like myself who are standing up and speaking in the House of Lords debates and so forth perhaps need to re-look at how we are saying things in order not to fuel anxieties of this nature.”
Those were the words of Admiral Lord Boyce himself, and I was grateful for his candour when he gave us that evidence in Committee.
Perception stems from what is said in this place and in the press. If it is said often enough, it becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy. Members—of this House and the other place—should be more temperate in their comments, otherwise they feed a perception that undermines the morale of our forces.
We have had much discussion in Standing Committee and this evening on the role of commanding officer. I should like to conclude by making it plain that the Bill has the support of the forces and that the changes that we are making to the role of the commanding officer will be supported and welcomed. Indeed, many of our forces have welcomed the removal of the power to dismiss serious charges. I have a high regard for General Sir Mike Jackson, and he put it perfectly:
“As far as the Army is concerned, I would echo the fundamental place of the Commanding Officer in holding good order and military discipline and we are content that the new Bill secures that position. There have been changes but they are not changes which we think in any way are significantly detrimental to that pole position which we would wish the Commanding Officer to hold.”
When we considered harmonising the powers of commanding officers, naval captains had perhaps most to lose. It was once said of the Navy in Nelson’s time that on board ship, the captain was second only to God, and that was only a matter of seniority. The Bill updates powers in the age of e-mail and satellite communications, and the then First Sea Lord made it clear when he gave evidence to our Committee that he was entirely happy with what has been retained. The changes in the Bill allow commanding officers to get on with what they do best: commanding, training and looking after the men and women under their command.
As I said on Second Reading, we place an enormous responsibility on the shoulders of our servicemen and women. We ask them to operate in circumstances that are often difficult, unpredictable and dangerous. We ask them to perform tasks that have no parallel in the civilian world. When young men and women sign on to serve in our armed forces, they know that they may face circumstances in which they put their lives on the line. That does not happen to those who join Barclays bank or Tesco. It is the peculiar and special position of those who join our armed forces. Sometimes, they make the ultimate sacrifice. We have again recently mourned the deaths of our young servicemen and women in Iraq.
Parliament and the armed forces demand high standards of behaviour from our forces, whether overseas on operations or training at home. Discipline is essential and service law is essential to enforce it. Ultimately we all want an effective and efficient fighting force.
There is no doubt that we need a separate system of law for the armed forces and that it needs to reflect the increasingly joint nature of their work. The Bill delivers that. The forces want the measure. It will provide strong legislation for service discipline in the 21st century. I hope that it will have the wholehearted support of the other place and that it will soon be on the statute book.
9.42 pm
Bob Russell: I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) for his past service as Under-Secretary. I believe that the Prime Minister has treated him shabbily by taking away the job after he piloted the
Bill almost to the finishing post. It is something when one is deemed, at 58, to be too old to be the Veterans Minister. However, I warmly welcome his replacement, the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson). As has been said, he performed spectacularly tonight and I wish him well in the future.
We welcome the Bill. It has been a long haul and it now goes to the other place, where there will be an opportunity to do the fine tuning that perhaps some people feel is still required. I join other speakers in thanking the Bill Committee team for all their work in briefing hon. Members and helping them through the various Committee stages. I say “various” because it is the first time that I have served on a Committee that evolved in such a way, through Standing and Select Committee structures. I found it very useful and informative, and I hope that it will become the pattern for future Bills.
The Bill will bring about the harmonisation of military disciplinary matters going back decades, if not centuries. It is not only the armed forces discipline Acts of 1955 and 1957—half a century ago—that are being updated. Certain measures go right back to the 19th century. It is right that, in the third millennium, we should have disciplinary procedures for the military that are fit for purpose, and that reflect the changing times and the increasing tendency for our armed forces to be on joint deployment, as we found when we visited British troops in Oman, Cyprus and Iraq as part of our investigation. I was impressed to see in Cyprus, for example, the military police from all three services working successfully as a single unit. In Iraq, we met helicopter pilots drawn from the RAF, the Army and the Navy working as a single unit. Joint deployment must not take away from the fact that each service has a special ethos, however. A naval helicopter pilot, for example, needs training and disciplines in maritime conditions, whereas those in the Army—such as those in 16 Air Assault Brigade from Colchester—need to operate rapid attack helicopters to get troops in at low level.
I was delighted that, in addition to visiting Iraq, Cyprus and Oman, the Committee had the good sense to visit the military corrective training centre at Colchester. It sets an example that the prison service could follow, in that it provides a good way of training young men—and, occasionally, young women—who have committed misdemeanours but who are nevertheless an important part of the military, and of getting them back into military service.
It is a special privilege to represent a garrison town, and I am particularly interested in the welfare of military discipline matters. We have heard a lot today about the command structure. In our garrison towns, we have garrison commanders. However, by the end of the year they will no longer be there, because the reconfiguration will result in brigade commanders taking over the role. I discovered that yesterday, and I also found, to my horror, that Colchester’s garrison commander, Colonel Tony Barton, will no longer be there. In fact, he is leaving the service because he feels that he is being forced out. That cannot be right, because garrison commanders are all part of the chain of command, and garrison boundaries and brigade
commanders’ boundaries are not always coterminous. I foresee problems arising from this change.
I would like the Minister to comment on another matter, which I have raised in Committee. It is the potential conflict between Ministry of Defence police and the civilian police as a result of the growing tendency, following the forced privatisation of married quarters by the previous Tory Government, to sell the houses on. There is now uncertainty on one Army estate in Colchester as to what is military and what is civilian, and whether the MOD police or the civilian police should prevail. I am sure that the problem can be worked out, but it does need to be addressed.
I am disappointed that our debate today dragged on in the way that it did, because it meant that we did not reach the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay). However, I hope that his proposal will come back at another time in another place.
Will the Minister also confirm in his summing up that the disciplinary procedures will apply to the Gurkhas serving in the British Army? I mention that because I want to put on record that the United British Gurkhas Ex-servicemen’s Association from Nepal presented a petition at No. 10 Downing street today about the injustices and unfairness suffered by those veterans. I hope that the Minister will confirm that today’s Gurkhas will be treated on equal terms with the rest of the British Army.
One interesting aspect of military discipline that was new to all of us on the Committee was AGAI 67—it is just as well that the number was not two more than that. Anyway, it stands for Army general and administrative instructions, which are low-level disciplinary procedures that can be carried out by sergeants and corporals as a form of immediate disciplinary action. I understand that the Bill will enable the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force also to introduce AGAI 67 minor sanctions.
The Liberal Democrats support the Bill. It is important, however, that the ethos of the different services and the distinctiveness of the Army, Navy and Air Force are maintained and retained while at the same time harmonising disciplinary procedures, especially when we have joint deployments. I wish the Minister well as he takes the Bill through the House.
9.50 pm
Mrs. Humble: Like other Members, I want to compliment both the former and current Minister and the whole team involved in this important Bill. However, the legislation must not only satisfy the needs of the armed forces but the needs of families who, sadly, have lost children serving in the armed forces and in peacetime barracks. They, too, are looking for answers in the Bill.
The experience of Army life is of immense benefit to the overwhelming majority of young men and women able to take advantage of that career. At the same time, young soldiers are in a vulnerable position. Service life requires strict discipline and a tough regime. Sometimes, however, discipline and toughness become bullying and harassment. Our task is to minimise the
opportunities for that to happen, and when it does, to provide a ready source of remedy to those so abused and harassed.
I referred earlier to Nicholas Blake QC, who undertook the inquiry into the deaths at Deepcut. Like him, I do not believe that the current proposals in the Bill go far enough to ensure independent supervision and review of the discipline and complaints system. Like him, I believe that there is
“a danger that an historic opportunity will be lost for the Armed Forces to obtain independent assistance to achieve the goals they have set themselves to ensure the welfare of trainees and soldiers is effectively addressed.”
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