Examination of Witnesses (Questions 384-399)
GENERAL SIR
MICHAEL WALKER
16 FEBRUARY 2006
Q384 Mr Key: General, we are very grateful
to you for coming, and welcome. This is an historic Bill because
it is the first time we have seen the coming together of the three
Service Acts into one Bill. Could I start by asking you if you
agree with the Service Chiefs that the annual renewal of Service
legislation through Orders in Council is beneficial? This has
been a considerable matter of argument that, not only has Parliament
for many hundreds of years said, "We shan't have a standing
Army unless Parliament will agree every year", but there
is now a proposal that that should be watered down. It is very
interesting though that the Service Chiefs took the view that
an annual renewal was beneficial. Do you concur?
General Sir Michael Walker: I
think the important one is the quinquennial review. That is the
one I really believe we should keep in the process and we should
focus on. Insofar as the annual renewal goes, it seems to me that
there is nothing particular to be gained by an annual review.
After all, the Armed Services are constantly on the lips in both
Houses and five years seems to be a suitable sort of period for
that to happen.
Q385 Mr Key: Do you feel that the
military law will be able to keep up to date with the changes
in the civil law because, after all, we have seen an approximation
variously expressed between Crown Court procedures and the courts
martial. You really feel that we can keep up to date in that?
General Sir Michael Walker: Yes,
I think every five-year period. If we look back at what we have
done in the past, there has been the quinquennial review which
has been the fundamental one and not many changes seem to have
happened on the annual ones.
Q386 Mr Key: From all your experience,
you are utterly convinced that the courts martial process is the
best way of handling the Service discipline issues?
General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
I think it is vital to military operational effectiveness and
everything we do, so absolutely. It seems to me this country deems
it necessary to have a military criminal justice system, that
is what we are talking about here, and I think it is fundamental
to the correct way of undertaking business to make sure that our
Forces are operationally effective around the world.
Q387 Mr Key: And that there is a
fair system of justice towards them?
General Sir Michael Walker: Absolutely.
Q388 Mr Key: It is on the lips of
a lot of people today, so I think it might be just appropriate
if I could ask you please whether you think there is any chance
of soldiers getting a fair trial for something which might have
occurred two or three years ago and which has now been all over
the front pages of the press all around the world, both the Americans
and indeed the British? Is it not the case that the best system
for dealing with that situation is a courts martial system?
General Sir Michael Walker: A
military criminal justice system, absolutely. I would agree with
that 100%.
Q389 Sarah McCarthy-Fry: In the new
Bill, as is the existing power, a lot of the order-making powers
are with secondary legislation, but of course the statutory instruments
we have got at the moment are on a single-Service basis and there
is going to be a huge job of harmonising them into tri-Service
secondary legislation. Do you think that your commanding officers
are going to need to be trained in the new system before all the
secondary legislation is in place?
General Sir Michael Walker: No,
I think the right order is that the legislation should be enacted,
that manuals should then be written and then we should conduct
the training.
Q390 Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Are all
your commanding officers aware that things are going to be changing?
General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
I think they are aware in broad principle terms that a new tri-Service
Act is coming in and that that is going to require that, when
they do their various courses, as they do now, the syllabus and
the nature of what they learn about is going to be different.
Q391 Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Have you
considered doing a short briefing note, saying that there may
be points which are going to change or are you going to wait?
General Sir Michael Walker: I
think we will wait. I think people are already aware and it is
on the lips of most people on most courses that we do on tri-Service
education and, remember, this is not something we have just thought
about. When I became head of the Army some six years ago, we were
already at that stage talking about going for a tri-Service Act.
Q392 Bob Russell: Sir Michael, we
have been told that the increasing level of joint working between
the three Services is the main driving force behind a tri-Service
approach. However, given that the majority of soldiers, sailors
and Air Force personnel would not be involved in joint units,
who will really benefit from a tri-Service approach?
General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
I would disagree with your contention that it is the majority.
Life has changed dramatically and at some stage now everybody
finds themselves in a joint environment. It does not have to be
on operations of course, there are a lot of joint environments
outside, so, when you send 11,000 people to fight fires in the
United Kingdom, invariably the local fire stations are set up
with a joint team. Now, it does seem rather ridiculous that, if
a member of a Royal Air Force regiment and an infantryman from
the Army go out, get drunk and have a punch-up, each of them should
be dealt with entirely separately, so I think there are wider
reasons and what we want is a coherent, single system that is
widely understood by those who have to administer the law and
by those who could be victims of it.
Q393 Bob Russell: You make a good
point, but do you not think there is a risk of losing the valuable,
separate identities of the single Services from such a tri-Service
approach?
General Sir Michael Walker: Absolutely
not, no.
Mr Key: Could we move on to the question
of redress of grievance.
Q394 Mr Jones: General, you will
be aware of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee's report
in the last Parliament which I think you gave evidence to. One
of the main recommendations was that there be some independent
oversight of the complaints procedure. Why have the MoD rejected
the idea of independent oversight?
General Sir Michael Walker: I
do not think it has totally rejected it. I think what it is is
that, in the context of the secondary legislation, we are trying
to work up some proposals to ensure that, in the redress panels
which are set up, there is room for certain cases to include an
independent member.
Q395 Mr Jones: What is different
in the UK from other militaries that do have an independent oversight?
Have you had discussions with other armed forces around the world
that actually do have an independent process?
General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
I am not an expert on other people's armed forces, but I think
what we need is something that is appropriate for our Armed Forces
which of themselves are unique and there is no other set of armed
forces which are like us. What we need are processes and structures
that are appropriate to what we do and that we believe are necessary,
so I do not think we should just cross-read from the fact that
some other has a system and plant that. After all, we have different
pay, we have a different ethos, we have different terms of service,
and I would contend that our soldiers do things very differently
from other people's armies.
Q396 Mr Jones: But increasingly we
are actually doing joint operations with armed forces from around
the world. Do you not also realise, from the publicity that there
has been around Deepcut and other issues that have come out over
the last few years in the press, that, with the fact that people
are losing faith in the process, clearly there is a reputation
problem there and the way obviously, I think, to redress that
would be to actually show some independent spotlight on the procedure.
Do you actually think that the proposal in this Bill of having
one possibly independent person is actually going to restore confidence
in people, that actually you are not just sweeping some of these
things under the carpet?
General Sir Michael Walker: But
I think it should. The redress complaints panel covers a wide
range of things that people may have done. If you are complaining,
for example, about the quality of your confidential report, it
does not seem to me suitable, necessary or a requirement to have
an independent person sitting on that redress panel. Where the
allegations are much more serious or the anxieties are much more
serious, then there could well be a case, but I think that, if
something is produced in the secondary legislation which allows
for an independent member of that panel, that will indeed give
people the confidence to believe that we do have the independence.
Q397 Mr Jones: Do you think that
the Army and MoD really are living in a bit of a time-warp in
the sense that greater scrutiny is there on a whole range of organisations,
including Parliament and public bodies? What is so special about
the Armed Forces?
General Sir Michael Walker: I
think I would look at the context really, and I think context
in that the things that the Armed Services have to do are very
different from what goes on in other parts of the world. What
you do need is people making judgments who do understand the context
of those who are being accused of some crime, so 24/7 living,
stress, pressures, finding yourself in a riot in some godforsaken
part of the world produce pressures on people where, so, when
you are looking at making judgments about what they do, it requires
you to have an understanding of that context. That is where I
think the difference lies.
Q398 Mr Jones: I accept the point
you are making about, for example, Iraq and elsewhere, but, in
a lot of the evidence that we took on the Defence Committee, a
lot of the instances brought to us were not actually of war situations,
but actually in garrisons up and down the country, including Catterick,
which is not a situation where people were under pressure from
enemy action, et cetera. In a lot of ways, part of that estate
is very similar to a lot of others.
General Sir Michael Walker: Yes,
but I do not think you can have a separate system for non-operations
and a different system for operations. I firmly believe that what
you need is a consistent and coherent approach to what you do
and it should apply in both peace and war.
Q399 Mr Jones: In what circumstances
do you think the independent person should be on the panel and
what type of person is this super-person going to be who is going
to have—
General Sir Michael Walker: I
think we are stepping ahead. This is going to be worked out as
part of the secondary legislation and I am sure it is going to
be debated widely, but there are clearly some circumstances in
which an individual may have a genuine grievance in which, if
it is not seen that there is somebody independent, the very accusations
that you referred to about cover-ups and these sorts of things
might be alleged, so it is those sorts of areas where there is
something that is seriously controversial where, if we did not
have somebody independent, it might well produce the sort of anxieties
you have just mentioned.
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