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22 Apr 2009 : Column 78WH—continued
Mrs. Humble: I have met my hon. Friend’s constituent and she and Lynn Farr do sterling work through Daniel’s Trust. I shall refer to them later, and they are an excellent example of an organisation that members of the armed forces trust. They go to Daniel’s Trust to complain or express concern, when they will not go through the chain of command. That highlights issues that the Service Complaints Commissioner raises about the gap between the number of complaints that are raised with other organisations and those that come to her through a formal process.
I want to move on to take further what the commissioner says in her report. She provides a clear and comprehensive account of her responsibilities and the work undertaken so far. She accepts the need for greater awareness of her role and describes the difficulties of establishing a baseline of good and bad practice against which she can measure future progress. Dr. Atkins talks of narrowing the gap between perceptions of harassment and bullying and the number of complaints perceived. The commissioner has made a start in pushing for an audit of the service complaints system, but available information about the number of complaints received reflects more accurately the findings of the recruit training survey of 2006-07 that 31 per cent. of trainees believed that if they submitted a complaint it would not be dealt with fairly. Dr. Atkins’s first-year experience shows a real need for the Service Complaints Commissioner’s role to include helping to improve the service complaints system and giving servicemen and women and their families confidence that they will be treated properly.
David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): Does not the way the Service Complaints Commissioner system is set up focus predominantly on individual redress—not, especially, on organisational improvement? The commissioner makes that clear in her report. Does my hon. Friend think that it is possible under the existing legislation for those two aims to be at the heart of what the commissioner is doing, avoiding a sole focus on individual cases, important though those are? How can the commissioner stand back and draw general conclusions and suggest general improvements for the organisation?
Mrs. Humble: My hon. Friend anticipates the conclusion of my speech, because I shall make exactly that point, and agree with what the commissioner says in her summary of her conclusions.
Dr. Atkins reports that a 2005 survey found that 42 per cent. of servicewomen felt there was a problem with sexual harassment. More than two thirds of women interviewed reported experiencing adverse sexual behaviour ranging from unwelcome comments to criminal assault in the previous year; 15 per cent. reported having a “particularly upsetting experience”. On 21 February 2008, in response to a question at column 859W, the Ministry of Defence reported that only 32 complaints of sexual harassment and eight of sexual discrimination in the armed forces had been received in 2006-07. That is startling evidence that under-reporting is rife. I agree with the commissioner that robust reporting systems should be available to support the complaints process. It is difficult to make decisions about management procedures and future policy without reliable statistical evidence. That should be available from unit level to the highest echelons of the services.
Dr. Atkins draws eight main conclusions and bases her 17 recommendations on them. The Service Complaints Commissioner regards timeliness of handling and communicating complaints as a critical aspect of provision but finds current performance “generally poor”. She makes recommendations on timetable target-setting, use of specialist equality investigation teams and measures to ensure effective communication with the complainant and the person who is complained about.
I should like the Minister to address a point about allegations of bullying. When soldiers are being bullied or perceive that they are at risk they frequently need protection, and that must be prompt. The findings of the Surrey police so-called fifth report into incidents at Deepcut barracks between 1995 and 2002 provide a wealth of information about the internal service culture on the camp at the time. It is well known that the police investigation of the conduct of training instructor Leslie Skinner led to a successful prosecution. However, Surrey police say that not one of the 13 alleged victims had felt confident enough to access any of the welfare services, confidential information lines, faith-based counsellors or senior officers that should have been able to provide redress.
In my capacity as chair of the all-party group on army deaths, I have been told by concerned parents and groups such as Daniel’s Trust that recruits who are being bullied or who fear that they are at risk of bullying believe that they have no option but to escape immediate risk by going AWOL. What steps will the Minister take to assure recruits who feel under threat of bullying that their safety can be guaranteed and that action can be taken without delay?
The Service Complaints Commissioner states:
“There is a need for more ownership and proactive management of complaints at the heart of command”.
I wish to make two points about that. First, I want to see a culture change in the armed services, and Parliament has a critical role to play in that.
The commissioner finds that too few servicemen and women have the confidence to speak out when treated badly. All service personnel should feel able to voice their concerns if they are victim to bullying, discrimination or harassment. There should be an open and honest environment for everyone. Complainants should not be seen as troublemakers. They should be supported, not shunned. Many feel that making a complaint will impact negatively on their career, and there is evidence that some wait until they leave the services before making a complaint.
The enlightened employer should encourage feedback and protect whistleblowers who act in the public interest. The environment that pertains in the armed services clearly presents a greater challenge for the exercise of that responsibility, but I invite the Minister to join me in asserting that the greater risk of maintaining a culture of silence and complicity requires that solutions are found.
The second point is this: the commissioner should be given greater assistance in developing a flexible approach to what should be regarded as a complaint. Why should the evidence given and the allegations made by the BBC about bullying at Catterick not be given the formal status of a complaint requiring investigation? The commissioner is required to receive communications
from a Member of Parliament on behalf of service personnel. Does such a communication constitute a formal complaint? If not, why not? Dr. Atkins refers in her report to receiving letters from Members of Parliament. Will the Minister assure me that he is routinely informed of serious incidents, and that commanding officers are required to ensure that a death in barracks is reported to the commissioner within 24 hours?
Dr. Atkins concludes that the focus of the service complaints system, which is to provide individual redress, must be broadened to take account of the need to address failure and to learn from it. If mistakes are identified, the system should provide a means by which they can be addressed. Complainants need to be secure in the knowledge that they will be treated seriously and well, and that complaints should result in organisational improvement. There should be evidence to show that once complaints are proved, changes are made. That is similar to the direction taken by the Government in their proposals for coroner law reform. The commissioner makes specific recommendations, but I wonder whether the Minister, when responding to the debate, will find a form of words to endorse the dual purpose approach that she advocates.
The Service Complaints Commissioner reports her wish to promote greater awareness of the existence and role of her office. I understand the difficulty of achieving a satisfactory level of recognition in the first year; the Irish ombudsman found a similar time lag. Although that guarantee of awareness will ultimately show the commissioner's effectiveness in meeting her objectives, I believe we all have a role to play. The Minister should draw up a plan to promote awareness and to ensure that we have parliamentary time to discuss it.
In my role as chair of the all-party group on army deaths, I am keenly aware of the work of bereaved families in trying to prevent the children of others falling victim to the same fate. If those families have confidence in the role of the commissioner, they will willingly promote her services. I bring to the attention of the House an initiative taken by Debra Williams, whose son Gavin was beasted to death at Lucknow barracks in 2006. Debra used her son’s story to urge others to work together to prevent future loss of life. Her website—stopbeastingsinthearmy.com—provides information and advice for families who think that their children may be at risk. It is important to find a way to give victims a voice in the process of creating greater awareness. The commissioner is already in touch with a number of such groups, but MPs and the Government could provide more help.
The commissioner concludes that there is inconsistency of practice on the handling of complaints across and within the services. She also believes that the lack of expertise in handling complaints is a common cause of failings. Can the Minister confirm that resources will be made available to monitor the system effectively, and to identify priority areas for improvement? Will he agree to review guidance to deal with the confusion caused by the different procedures required for equality and diversity complaints, and complaints about other matters?
When complaints about bullying and harassment arise in the public domain, the response of the MOD press office is sometimes too defensive. The standard approach of affirming the policy of zero tolerance towards bullying is well meaning but sometimes empty.
The implication is that the existence of the policy has eradicated the problem. It would be better if the position was restated as a tri-service commitment to work towards the elimination of bullying and harassment, while ensuring that the Service Complaints Commissioner has been notified.
The commissioner argues that a system of complaints works best if the complaint is about a matter within the scope of command of the armed services, and recommends that the service secretariats should review the handling of complaints that arise outside the scope of the chain of command. Her report concludes that the complaints system is geared to work at the top levels and not at the lowest appropriate level, and it makes specific recommendations in order to address that imbalance. Finally, Dr. Atkins finds that the complaints system is accessible in theory but beset by barriers in practice. That is also the prime concern of bereaved families and those who contact anti-bullying organisations.
The Royal British Legion has been at the forefront of the campaign to give new meaning and substance to the military covenant. I believe that an open and transparent system for investigating complaints, and for making effective redress and institutional response to identified failure, must be at the heart of the Government’s support for service personnel.
This is the Service Complaints Commissioner’s first report, and she is clearly describing work in progress. In that first year, Dr. Atkins was contacted by 193 people, and I have no doubt that more will come forward this year. Her conclusions and recommendations mark out a method that will establish a workable baseline from which future progress can be gauged and accurately assessed. The commissioner’s proposals are carefully constructed as a coherent framework, and I urge the Government to respond to the block of recommendations as a whole.
This will not be our last debate on accountability and oversight of the armed services. Failure to address these issues will undermine the ability of Her Majesty’s armed services to deliver the effective and efficient service that we need. Oversight is an aspect of good governance that we must get right. We have a responsibility to continue the debate, to learn from experience and take the process forward. I place on the record my thanks to the Service Complaints Commissioner, who has done an excellent job in the role that Parliament gave her. I am sure that we will discuss the nature of that role at greater length as she produces many more reports.
10.8 am
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble). This is the second time in two days that I have followed her when speaking in this Chamber, but yesterday I named her constituency incorrectly, so I am pleased to have the chance to get it right today. She has introduced an extremely important debate and did so extremely well. I agree with much of what she had to say.
I wonder about the process by which the Service Complaints Commissioner’s report was brought to the notice of Parliament. As I understand it—I am ready to be corrected—there is at present no formal way for the commissioner to report to Parliament. I wonder whether
it might not be sensible for the report to be more readily available—for example, through the Vote Office, which I think was not the case this year. I obtained my copy by downloading it from the internet. In future years, it might be sensible to have in place a formal method by which the commissioner can make her report known to Parliament.
Like the hon. Lady, I congratulate the commissioner on her excellent work in an undoubtedly difficult first year. She has had to get herself and her services known around the armed services, and has no doubt had to handle some very needy and difficult cases among the 190-odd that she has heard so far. I am certain that, on occasions, servicemen and women who might be nervous of their chain of command, or who might be victims of bullying, harassment or discrimination, have no other way to raise their concerns with the authorities. It is useful to have a means by which they can.
There have been a number of cases in my constituency. In two recent ones, bullying was alleged and the individuals involved went AWOL. I am glad to say that, the families officer from the 9th Supply Regiment in Hullavington handled the situation extremely well, visited the soldiers in a secret location and reported back. That case is under investigation, but was handled extremely sensitively—as far as I am aware—by the regiment. However, at another time, it might not have been, so it would be useful to have the commissioner in the background, as a back-stop for soldiers. I therefore congratulate her on the difficult work that she has done. I am grateful that she is there.
I enter two caveats on that point. First, there is a very narrow dividing line between applying the sort of difficult, rigid discipline necessary to make armed servicemen in battle do things that you and I, Mr. Pope, would not willingly do. I suspect that most of us here have visited theatres of war. We ask these young men and women to do things that we here would not do in any circumstances. That requires an especially firm form of discipline that must be inculcated into new regimental recruits in a particular way. There is a very narrow dividing line between finding ways to inculcate such discipline and bullying and harassment, and occasionally people step over that line.
Beasting has been mentioned. Most in the armed services would acknowledge that beasting is not a very good way of instilling discipline, and I would be very surprised if it is used very widely, but a company sergeant major being rough with new recruits—not physically, but in a command sort of a way—is a traditional part of the Army way of life. It is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. Being nice to recruits will not necessarily do them any good. The importance of the commissioner’s role is in judging when that dividing line has been overstepped.
Mrs. Humble:
I am on the record as saying in earlier debates on this matter that the training that our armed services receive is different from that received by someone in civilian life doing a civilian job. Dr. Atkins, when she gave evidence to the Select Committee on her first report, also recognised that point, saying that there is a difference between training in the armed services and training to work in Sainsbury’s. I agree with her. She
also said that we need a fair complaints system, because otherwise there would just be a moaning system, and we cannot have that. If people have a complaint, it needs to be looked at.
Mr. Gray: The hon. Lady makes my point very much better than I did, and she is, of course, absolutely right.
The second caveat is this: the armed services have always had an extremely good complaints system. In my experience of the armed services—as chairman of the all-party group on the Army, a former Territorial Army soldier and an MP with quite a large number of servicemen in my constituency—by and large, the regiment, or RAF Lyneham, which is also in my constituency, go out of their way to address problems as they arise. They do not want these things to happen, and when an allegation of bullying or harassment is made, the families officer in particular goes out of their way to discover the truth. One must also bear in mind that an allegation of bullying or harassment is not necessarily the same thing as bullying or harassment. Very often, an allegation might not hold up under scrutiny. None the less, I accept the commissioner’s role, which is a particularly useful one, and I can think of quite a number of constituency cases in which I was glad to have her in the background.
I had a slight difficulty, however, with one part of the hon. Lady’s contribution. She suggested that the role laid down in the 2006 Act for the commissioner to scrutinise the armed services complaints procedure—that is really what it says in the Act—should be extended to a generalised investigation of the circumstances surrounding an otherwise unexplained death of an armed serviceman. Like us all, the hon. Lady is very concerned about the circumstances surrounding the very unfortunate deaths at Deepcut. That was a more or less unique set of circumstances. The original Select Committee report that led to the establishment of the commissioner was particularly concerned about Deepcut.
Leaving Deepcut to one side, however, should we accept the principle that the role of the commissioner is to investigate all armed services deaths where no other explanation is known? In a number of cases, that might be sensible—when a person dies from beasting, in the example that the hon. Lady gave, or when there is an unexplained death in barracks. Such cases might well be worthy of further investigation by the commissioner if there is suspicion of improper behaviour by the armed services, but I believe—I am ready to be corrected—that by far the largest number of armed services deaths are caused by road traffic accidents. In such cases I presume that the commissioner would have no role—unless the equipment or vehicle was defective, I suppose.
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