Armed Forces Bill |
|
Mr. Burrowes: May I deal with some introductory remarks before speaking to new clause 6? I am sure that hon. Members wish to consider in more detail the matter before us, particularly new clause 24. Concern has been expressed about the complaint process by the Daniel’s Trust, Deepcut and Beyond, and others. Clearly, there is a need for a robust independent complaints procedure, although it should be recognised that there are different levels of complaint and grievance. The primary concern is to deal with the complaint or grievance at an early stage, and the ideal scenario would be to deal with it at its lowest level. That should be the aim of any new provision. Before a complaint gets to the proposed service complaints panel, a range of methods and systems could be put in place at a lower level that do not reach
Certainly during our visits and in my conversations with those on the ground, I found that people were concerned about the time taken to resolve complaints and the fact that those who were subject to a complaint had that hanging over their head for some time. It cannot be in the interests of the alleged victims—the complainants—or of those subject to a complaint to have that hanging over them. Some officers at RAF Seeb told me that they had had a complaint hanging over them for some months—one talked about years—and although that was the case, they were given only a very short period in which to respond to the complaint. Improvements are certainly needed in that process, but that can be dealt with without statutory procedures. We heard in evidence the concerns expressed by the services and the recognition that personnel, especially those who are young, vulnerable and new to the services, can find it daunting to initiate a service complaint, especially when the grievance is against those above them in the chain of command. The perception can be that making a complaint is at odds with the prevailing culture of the services, with their emphasis on teamwork, robustness, mutual trust and overcoming obstacles. A number of changes, which are not the subject of provisions of the Bill, have been and are due to be put in place to improve the process. We heard concerns expressed by families involved with Daniel’s Trust and Deepcut as to whether those changes have had a practical effect, but there are certain processes that do not need additional legislation. My other preliminary point concerns the role of the commanding officer, which is no doubt important. As a complaint progresses up to the higher levels of the chain of command, there needs to be recognition of the importance of the service ethos, which is essential, and the effective operation of the command function. That needs to be properly maintained. At the point before one reaches the service complaint level, the commanding officer should properly be involved and dealing with complaints. When one considers proposals, one has to balance the need to retain the role of the commanding officer in the chain of command with recognising the need for independence to provide the trust and confidence that complainants and families would want. The issue of independence will no doubt be dealt with in more detail by the proposer of new clause 24. Perhaps I can refer to that later. New clause 6 is designed to deal with the concerns and the perception that there might be obstacles to progressing a grievance. It would do so differently from measures that we shall deal with shortly. It would make it an offence if a person subject to service law undermined or stifled any procedure for the redress of
In a clear-cut way, the new clause would restore, where that was needed, confidence in the ability to progress a grievance. It would provide protection to the complainant and ensure that all were aware that any attempt to obstruct or stifle a grievance would be an offence. It would therefore empower complainants and provide a check on any person seeking to obstruct. In its own way, it would provide the necessary confidence in the system, which could back up the non-statutory provision being made for a robust and independent complaints procedure. 10.15 amMr. Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab): I want to speak to new clause 24. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for supporting the money resolution on the Floor of the House, which gave us the opportunity to debate this important subject this morning. I am only sorry that the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) is not here. I thought he a little foolishly pre-empted in the Chamber this morning’s discussion by being hostile to the idea of any independent oversight. I thought that the spirit of the new Conservative party was to embrace change—that would have been an opportunity to show that it was tapping into a rich vein of concern—although clearly I would not say that the hon. Gentleman was a new Conservative by any stretch of the imagination. It is an accident of the parliamentary timetable that we are discussing the issue today on the same day as the publication of the Blake report into the four, sad deaths at Deepcut barracks. The Deepcut deaths and the associated publicity—not just round those, but other deaths and incidents of bullying in the armed forces—have done a great deal of damage to the reputation of the armed forces, particularly to the Army. I pay tribute to the Deepcut and Beyond families, who came to give evidence, particularly Mr. Gray, Mrs. Farr and Mrs. Langford, with their adviser, Mr. Dickson. They came here with great dignity and gave useful evidence to the Committee. Some members of the Committee were reticent about taking evidence from them, but their evidence has added to the deliberations of the Committee. I consider myself to be a friend and strong supporter of our armed forces. My constituency provides many young men and women to the armed forces. The north-east, the area which I represent, also has many service families living there. It is important to put that on the record. I reiterate the point that Deepcut and the associated publicity—which has not just been about Deepcut, but Catterick and other instances—has done a great deal of damage to the armed forces. An issue that concerns me is whether that publicity will have an impact on recruitment. Certainly I go into schools and encourage the armed forces to go into my local schools, because the forces offer a good career path for the young men and women in some of my deprived communities. I know that the forces succeed
We need a mechanism to restore that reputation—important to that is independence from the Ministry of Defence and the military. If the mechanism is to have credibility and the confidence of the public, it has got to be independent and cannot be seen to be part of the MOD or the armed forces. The evidence of the Deepcut and Beyond families that highlights that point is on page 7 of their submission to us. The title encapsulates the point that I am trying to make: “Openness and Transparency”. They are the two words that should run through the debate, ensuring that everything that the armed forces are doing is seen as being open and transparent. In the last Parliament, I had the privilege of sitting on the Defence Committee, which did a year-long inquiry into the duty of care for our servicemen in all three services. Although that report was generated from Deepcut, we did not just specifically look at the deaths at Deepcut—we did not want to pre-empt what Blake or other inquiries were doing. We took a broader look at what and how initial and other training was carried out in the armed forces. The experience that I came away with is a little like what we have learned on this Committee, which is that our armed forces are all different in the way that they do things. We took extensive evidence. I cannot remember how many visits we went on to training establishments throughout the UK. The report was well researched, well put together and is a body of evidence that anyone looking at the issue in the future can use as a definitive piece of work. The key recommendations were made by myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr. Roy), who is now, unfortunately, in the purdah of the Whips Office, but we felt strongly that an independent oversight of the armed forces and complaints was needed. It was not just the two of us who said that; there have been other calls for independent oversight. The Bett report, the independent review of the armed forces’ manpower, careers and remuneration structures— Bob Russell: Can the hon. Gentleman advise the Committee what the outcome of his proposal was? Was it agreed, and if so, was it unanimous? Mr. Jones: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Bett report or to the Select Committee report. Bob Russell: The hon. Gentleman referred to a recommendation or proposal that he put forward. Mr. Jones: It was unanimously agreed by hon. Members of all parties, which is what tends to happen in the Defence Committee. I hasten to add that the only Liberal Democrat on the Committee at the time was the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) who, although he made a lot of light and noise outside the Committee, rarely attended any visits and when he did turn up to consider the report,
Bob Russell: I am trying to be helpful. Mr. Jones: The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that he is trying to be helpful. So am I. The Chairman: Order. No matter what the provocation, the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) should not be making interventions from a sedentary position. Mr. Jones: The Bett report recommended extending the terms of reference of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration to permit dealing with complaints from servicemen about administrative matters. The recommendation was not accepted, mainly on the grounds that the service already had procedures to deal with redress. I shall come back to that, because it is a matter that keeps coming up. The report also considered whether we will be unique in the world if we adopt the procedure. Clearly, we will not. Germany, Norway, Canada, Australia, Israel, Sweden and Finland all have methods for reviewing the actions of their armed forces in terms of complaints. They take the form of ombudsmen, various types of independent commission and other bodies. I shall not labour the matter at length now, but there are more details in the report—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Chelmsford says, “Phew”, but I have not finished by a long way. The Bill gives us a great opportunity to take on board the recommendations of the Select Committee and to address concerns about how accountable our armed forces are. Having dealt with it over the past five years, I know that the Ministry of Defence is a great leviathan, which moves at a slow pace, sometimes going in one direction and then taking 10 steps backwards. Because of public pressure on the issue and the Select Committee report, it has felt a little heat on its large girth. In the report, we recommend that an independent person should sit on the service boards. I cannot say that I accept that as a way forward in terms of independence. It will be seen as a sop, and will not be acceptable to the Deepcut families, the media or the public. However, if there is to be one independent person, we need to know where and why that person will sit, who he or she will be and what his or her role will be. What expertise will be required? The other issue that concerns me about putting the service boards forward as the independent means of redress to the great advancement of the MOD is that the figures that we were given on 15 March on complaints to the service boards for bullying and harassment redress were woefully small. They made no reference to, and did not match up with, what has been in the press. Neither did they reflect the good evidence given by Mrs. Farr, who provided numerous examples of complaints that she had received from service
When she was cross-examined by the hon. Member for Aldershot, Mrs. Farr gave evidence that she receives regular complaints from service personnel at places such as Catterick. Clearly, those complaints do not appear on the list provided to the Committee. The main reason that she came forward is that these cases are dealt with too far down the chain of command—they never reach the service board. Therefore, having an independent person on a service board would be next to useless. It might make someone in the MOD tick a box to say that it had reacted to public concern about independence, but I disagree strongly that it would help. The main objection put forward by the hon. Gentleman was that an independent member of a service board would interfere with the chain of command. Although I recognise that the chain of command is central to the culture and ethos of the armed forces, I do not agree that an independent commissioner would be an obstacle to it. Already, for example, service personnel have independent redress for sexual and racial discrimination, and in her evidence to us, Mrs. Farr gave a great example of how she bypassed the chain of command by reporting occurrences at Catterick directly to the commanding officer. Mrs. Farr mentioned Colonel Jennings—I congratulate him; clearly, he is taking these matters seriously. If he is taking the matters on board and listening to her concerns, it is good practice. No doubt his approach will not go down well in the MOD, nor will it do a great deal of good for his career, but he must be congratulated on addressing the real concerns. Mrs. Farr is bypassing the chain of command to speak to those at the top, which is good. Robert Key: Would the military complaints commissioner be able to consider a complaint from a member of the public against an individual serviceman or woman? Mr. Jones: That issue was raised several times in the Select Committee on Defence. For example, the complaints commissioner could legitimately be a former serviceman or woman. To have the commissioner bombarded with frivolous or vexatious complaints from people who have never been in or connected to the armed forces would not work. In my opinion, the commissioner would consider only complaints from current or former service personnel. That would guard against the hon. Gentleman’s concern that the commissioner would have a roving brief to respond to every Tom, Dick, Harry or Mary who wanted to make a complaint. Column Number: 120 In phrasing new clause 24, I did not want to scare the rabbits in the MOD—I know that they are sensitive souls. I tried, unusually for me, to be as consensual as possible. New clause 24(2)(a) states that the commissioner should use his or her power to deal with complaints efficiently and effectively. I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s point—I do not want for one minute to prolong the complaints, meaning that cases take for ever to be resolved. Trying to deal with complaints locally and effectively is important. New clause 24(7) states that once a formal investigation has been completed, the commissioner should
I included those words to ensure that matters do not jump outside the military but go back into the chain of command, because these things are problematical. They would not sit well completely outside the military structure. 10.30 amThe commissioner should try to reinforce public confidence. He would make an annual report to Parliament, which would include the number of complaints and how they had been dealt with, ensuring public scrutiny of his effectiveness. The Committee has already debated what type of person should be a commissioner. I think it would have to be someone who is not a serving member of Her Majesty’s armed forces, because the commissioner must be seen to be completely independent and not part of the chain of command. This is a modest proposal. I shied away from the work done by the Select Committee on the ombudsman and from Mr. Blake’s report, which mentioned considering some individual cases retrospectively, because I could see the expense growing like Topsy, with a never-ending process of investigation. It would be very difficult to get to the bottom of cases that happened 10 or 20 years ago, for example. The MOD and the military will think that my proposal is controversial. I know some people will not like it and say that it tries to undermine the military, but I stress that that is not what I set out to do. I draw a parallel with what happened in the 1980s before the Independent Police Complaints Commission was set up, when similar arguments were made on why that should not be done. It was said that it would hamper the police and interfere with their operational effectiveness, but it did not. The Select Committee took evidence from chief constables, who said that independent scrutiny enhances their role and effectiveness in dealing with complaints. It does not hamper the police in terms of how they do their job, and the new clause would not hamper the military. I feel strongly that this is a matter not of whether there should be a commissioner, but of when what is proposed will come into operation. I have said already that I am worried about damage to the reputation of the armed forces. The Defence Committee’s
The Conservative party is often seen as the defender of the armed forces, protecting their integrity and the way they operate. I consider myself someone who will defend the armed forces—not for the same historic, possibly jingoistic, reasons put forward by people such as the hon. Member for Aldershot, but because the people who serve in the armed forces are the sons and daughters of my constituents. Often, it is young men and women from the more socially disadvantaged areas of this country such as my constituency who go into the armed forces, and I want to ensure that they have the ultimate protection when they serve. This matter will not just go away and the Bill provides ample opportunity to put things right. If we miss that opportunity, we will regret it in the coming years. Eventually, we will end up with a commissioner, as I propose, or something very similar. Robert Key: I share the hon. Gentleman’s motive, in that I have in my constituency many thousands of service families from various regiments. Some come and go while some, such as the Royal Artillery, are permanently based there. A lot of bread-and-butter issues concerning complaints about aspects of military life are not handled very well in today’s terms. On Tuesday, I referred to the changing perception of the roles of commanding officers. It was a common expectation 25 years ago that a commanding officer would have complete, unquestioning and unswerving loyalty and the responsibility to put right anything that was wrong, whether it be a serious military complaint or a less serious matter such as a married quarters dispute. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that times have moved on, and they will move on again. It is now impossible for us to imagine life without a series of ombudsmen, whether they be Parliamentary Commissioners, local government, health, insurance or legal ombudsmen, or the IPCC, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. However, examples come to mind of much bigger cases, and I wonder whether a military complaints commissioner, as envisaged in the new clause, would have been helpful. The case of Colonel Pople, which arose a few years ago, occupied for months dozens of military personnel who had much better things to do than inquire into and pass judgment on whether the behaviour of an Army officer with a Royal Navy officer was appropriate or inappropriate. In this day and age, there might be a case for taking that sort of thing away from the chain of command, leaving those people with things more appropriate for them to consider. I referred earlier to the slightly misunderstood—some might say mysterious—role of chaplains in the forces and to the other religions now served by men of those particular faiths. Work must be done there: they seek to provide an independent ear for people in the forces, but clearly that is not working as well as it might. That is another example of a function that could be pursued. Column Number: 122 Then there is the question of the families themselves. In my experience, the chain of command often works well when dealing with family disputes. Sometimes the issue is regimental—debts, for example, and a family falling on hard times—or one of a husband serving in Iraq and the family at home having difficulties with schooling. I often have to try to pick up the pieces in such matters. I asked the hon. Gentleman whether he foresees the independent military complaints commissioner perhaps being able to deal with complaints from a civilian. I had in mind the case, not infrequent in my constituency, of a serviceman getting into debt with service providers—anything from child minders to taxi services—and disappearing behind the wire. The traders involved in such cases assume that there is a magic wand called Member of Parliament that they can wave at the Ministry of Defence to get everything sorted. They cannot, of course, because a serviceman has human rights like everybody else. It is not possible for the regiment, or indeed Ministers, to intervene directly in such cases and stop the pay of people who owe money to taxi drivers. I thought that the hon. Gentleman might have such things in mind, but he says not. If I understand him rightly, such things would not be a function of the commissioner. I am rather pleased to hear that. There are other grave issues that we should perhaps consider, such as Operation Antler. That relates to the occasion when a member of the public walked into a police station in the north-east of England to complain about the death of a serviceman with whom he had served in 1953, whom he believed had died because of the irresponsible actions of the Ministry of Defence at Porton Down that year. I refer to the case of Ronald Madison. That led to the expenditure of millions of pounds, and permanently tied up about 40 policemen and women from the Wiltshire constabulary and the Ministry of Defence police. It led to problems of shared bills—who would pay for that massive operation?—and brought enormous discomfort to the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps it could have been handled by a military complaints commissioner in the first place. Mr. Jones: I am trying through my new clause to negate what the hon. Gentleman has described, so that frivolous and vexatious cases could be sifted out. In cases such as the one he is referring to, the complaint should be to the police with respect to their reasons for taking the course of action that they did in the first place. Robert Key: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that. What I am really saying, having done a bit of a tour d’horizon of very small and very large cases, is that there undoubtedly are cases for which the function of a military complaints commissioner should be considered. We do, after all, have experience from other, not dissimilar, forces in Australia and Canada, for which the system has worked well. I hope that we shall not just dismiss it. Column Number: 123 I am sure that the Minister will not do that, but I suspect that he will say that this is an idea whose time has almost come, although he might not even go that far. I should say that it is an idea whose time has almost come and I am pretty sure that if a further quinquennial Act is envisaged, it will be on the agenda. I hope that between now and then the issue will be positively resolved, but we must take it seriously for the sake not just of Army families, but of commanding officers, as well as the Ministry of Defence and its functions. I welcome the new clause and congratulate the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) on tabling it for the Committee to consider. I suspect that we shall not get as far as agreeing it today, but we should take it seriously now, and we will have to take it seriously in future. [Sarah McCarthy-Fry in the Chair] Vera Baird: I support my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham, and I pay tribute to his perseverance and the clear arguments he has made on this point over a long time, during the duty of care deliberations and on this occasion. I am satisfied that he is arguing his case from the point of view of a friend of the military, and I want to adopt the same attitude. Mr. Burns: Can the hon. and learned Lady help me a little? I assume that the Minister, and Government policy, do not support the creation of such a body, so how can the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, whom I believe is bound by collective responsibility, take a view contrary to that of the Government? Vera Baird: The hon. Gentleman will have to wait and see what the Government say, but there is no bar to anyone expressing views on a matter outside their Department, whatever their role in that Department. The hon. Gentleman missed a treat the other day when I introduced an Adjournment debate on attrition in rape cases, in which I said quite a bit about how policies could be improved. He is probably—this would surprise me, because he has been a Member of the House of Commons for longer than me by a considerable margin—misunderstanding the position. Also, quite frankly, he is getting in my hair, as I want to make a brief supportive contribution to a good argument. 10.45 am |
| |
| ©Parliamentary copyright 2006 | Prepared 30 March 2006 |