Monday 8th February 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberArmed Forces Act 2021 View all Armed Forces Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text
The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Johnny Mercer)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is a privilege to open this debate today on our Armed Forces Bill, not least because it carries with it such historical significance. Decades after the disaster of the English civil war, the Bill of Rights of 1688 required Parliament to pass an Act every five years to maintain a standing army. That landmark document states that
“the raising or keeping a standing army within the United Kingdom…in time of peace, unless it be with the consent of Parliament, is against the law”.
Centuries on, that pivotal constitutional function still stands, and by reviewing what has evolved into the Armed Forces Act 2006 every five years, this Bill is the mechanism for ensuring that members of our armed forces obey lawful orders. It underpins military command, discipline and justice. Without it, our military would be unable to operate as a professional body beyond the end of 2021. In other words, this legislation is essential for our forces to act effectively, and a vital bulwark of our democracy.
The legislation we are discussing today is as much about our future as about our present and our past. This is a moment of renewal, as will become clear when I move on to discuss some of the Bill’s key measures. It will have far-reaching benefits for defence and for our broader service community, and it is fitting that we are reviving our pledge to our people at this time. Over the past 12 months they have been shoulder to shoulder in the thick of the struggle against covid, performing Herculean tasks in support of our excellent NHS doctors and nurses.
Perhaps no one sums up the enduring spirit of our armed forces through the ages better than the late great Captain Sir Tom Moore. Always humble, never entitled, ever using his unique experiences to help others, he was a special man, a true patriot and the perfect veteran. When I spoke to Captain Tom, I always thanked him not only for his generation’s service, which was the perfect example for mine to follow, but for the example he gave to us all, young and old, during this pandemic. Captain Tom was one of a disproportionate number of veterans who have stood up and served again during this time, and as the UK Government’s Veterans Minister, I pay tribute to them today. This Bill is designed to deliver for them.
The Bill has three main elements, and I will deal with each in turn. First, renewal. I start with clause 1. As previously mentioned, this legislation renews the Armed Forces Act 2006. The 2006 Act covers matters such as: the powers of commanding officers to punish disciplinary or low-level criminal misconduct; the powers of the court martial system; and the powers of the service police. This Bill provides for continuation of the 2006 Act for a year from the date on which it receives Royal Assent. It provides for its further renewal for up to a year at a time until the end of 2026, ensuring that Parliament has a regular opportunity to debate our nation’s armed forces.
Secondly, the Bill makes important changes to the service justice system. This Government are committed to achieving justice in all allegations of criminal offending by or against service personnel anywhere in the world, just as we are equally committed to supporting the victims and witnesses of the most serious crimes.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I apologise for intervening so early, but I wanted to do so while the Minister was mentioning justice. In this Bill, he deals with justice to our armed services and forces, but we are still waiting for protection against vexatious allegations in cases from Northern Ireland where people have already been tried and found innocent. I served there back at that same time, and many people I know live in fear that they are going to be called for something that they thought was over, done and gone. When is that legislation going to come in front of the House?
Johnny Mercer
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I think it is appropriate that I deal with this matter now, although it may come up a number of times during the debate. Let me be absolutely clear: this Prime Minister, for the first time in this country’s history, has committed to ending the vexatious nature of repeat investigations of our veterans who served in Northern Ireland; this Northern Ireland Secretary has given the same commitments; and we are closer now than we have ever been to delivering on that promise. Those veterans are not left behind. I pay tribute to them for their service. Legislation will be coming in due course from the Northern Ireland Office. The Government are working and are committed to this issue like never before. I just urge a little more patience. Colleagues will know my commitment to the issue, and I am determined to see it through.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I certainly endorse everything that the Minister has said about his own commitment and the commitment of the Government to this issue. May I just make an appeal that, when he does bring forward the legislation for Northern Ireland veterans, it focuses not only on the question of prosecutions, but on the question of investigations, the vast majority of which never lead to prosecutions but are still terribly oppressive? That is what is missing from the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill; it is good on prosecutions, but has not yet done enough about repeated reinvestigation.
Johnny Mercer
My right hon. Friend is very knowledgeable and learned in this space. The issue is a lot more complicated than it is made out to be by a lot of people who contribute to this debate. There is no evidence, essentially, of vexatious prosecutions per se. It is the investigations that are the trouble. There are elements of this Bill that address how we investigate. There are elements not in this Bill that are being brought into the Department, such as a serious crime unit, to ensure that these things can never happen again.
Let me be clear that if we were to invent a system that essentially said, “We will not investigate”, that would be the equivalent of an amnesty, and this Government are not committed to going down that route either. This is a difficult area and it is a delicate balance, but the strategic objective has been set by the Prime Minister; it is one that I and many Members in the House have campaigned on for years, and we will deliver on it. It is a tough ask and a tough battle, but we will win it. I urge patience while we get to the end of this battle.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
The Minister is not the problem; the problem is the Northern Ireland Office, as everyone knows. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) chairs the veterans support group in this place; he has been followed by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), a previous Chairman of the Defence Committee and now Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee; and I am a member of the veterans support group. The Prime Minister promised 18 months ago that we would have this legislation before the next general election. Well, we have had the general election and we have had a year, so with the greatest of respect, will the Minister take back to the Northern Ireland Office the fact that our patience is now exhausted? We do not want words and we do not want to be patronised; we want a Bill. Where is it?
Johnny Mercer
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and it is a fair point. However, I would just say that we have had 18 months since that election, but this challenge has existed for 40 years—for 40 years—and our predecessors have not dealt with it. It is unrealistic to expect the Northern Ireland Office and the Prime Minister to have delivered on this by now, but they have made that commitment. I would slightly push back on this idea that the Northern Ireland Secretary is the roadblock, as my right hon. Friend has put to me before. That is not my experience, and I am engaged in this every day and I think on this matter every day. That is not fact; what is fact is that this is extremely difficult, but this Government will get it over the line. I am going to make progress now.
Johnny Mercer
No, I will not give way. I will make progress now.
The service justice system remains a fair and effective system, but no system, as we know, should remain static. The service justice system review underlined that we must do more to strengthen it so that our people and their families have confidence that they will receive fair treatment. That is why clauses 2 to 7, along with clause 11, implement important recommendations of the service justice system review. In the interests of time, I will focus today on only the most salient measures.
Clause 7 deals with the notion of concurrent jurisdiction. For offences committed by service personnel in the UK, justice can be delivered through the civilian criminal justice system or the service justice system. The service justice system review of 2020 found the system to be fair, robust and ECHR-compliant, but it also proposed that some of the most serious offences should not be prosecuted at court martial when they are committed by service personnel in the UK, except where the consent of the Attorney General is given. To be clear, the review was not saying that the service justice system should stop dealing with certain categories of cases that occur in the United Kingdom; it was saying that, when such cases come up, controls should be introduced if they are to be tried in the service justice system. Meanwhile, jurisdiction would remain to deal with such cases overseas.
The Government have considered this recommendation fully and carefully, but we have concluded that the concurrency of jurisdictions must remain. We are confident that the service justice system is capable of dealing with all offences, whatever their seriousness and wherever they occur, though there are important improvements that can and should be made to ensure the system is as resilient, robust and transparent as it possibly can be. However, we do agree that the current non-statutory protocols and guidance about jurisdiction must be clearer, so clause 7 of the Bill places a duty on the heads of the service and civilian prosecutors in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to agree protocols regarding the exercise of concurrent jurisdiction. We believe that such decisions on jurisdiction are best left to the independent service justice and UK civilian prosecutors, using guidance agreed between them. The Bill ensures that civilian prosecutors will have the final say should a disagreement on jurisdiction between the prosecutors remain unresolved. I want to be clear: this is not about seeking to direct more cases into the service justice system and away from the civilian criminal justice system, or vice versa; it is about guaranteeing that both systems can handle all offending and are equally equipped to deliver justice for victims.
Moving on from clause 7, clause 11 is the first step in creating an independent body to oversee complaints against the service police. To support our world-class armed forces, we need a highly skilled and capable service police, and we are always looking for improvements. Once again, the service justice system review has provided several important recommendations. These include the creation of a defence serious crime capability, something we are pursuing separately since it does not require legislation, but it is the report’s proposal for an independent service police complaints system, modelled on the system in place for civilian police in England and Wales, that we will take further today.
The rules governing oversight of the civilian constabulary are set out in part 2 of the Police Reform Act 2002, which is overseen by the director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct. We are, in essence, replicating that system, by establishing an independent service police complaints commissioner. They will have the power to investigate serious and sensitive matters involving the service police, including those relating to conduct, serious injury and death. They will also set the standards by which the service police should handle complaints. As in the case of civilian police, provision will be made to handle both whistleblowing and super-complaints—those issues raised by designated organisations on behalf of the public about harmful patterns or trends in policing.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. May I thank Justice Lyons for his contribution in putting together the service justice review, which happened on my watch, as my hon. Friend’s predecessor? I see that the Defence Secretary is in his place. Will he use the opportunity to clarify why certain types of offences—the most serious offences—could not, as per the recommendation, be moved across to the civilian courts which, it was argued, had better experience to deal with these matters?
Johnny Mercer
As I have said, the review was not saying that the service justice system should stop dealing with certain categories of cases. All it was saying was that, when cases came up, controls should be introduced if they are tried in the service justice system. The control that was recommended by the review was the Attorney General’s consent. Instead, we want something that is more transparent for both victims and those accused, that is more resilient and more robust, and that is the protocol that is agreed between civilian prosecutors and service prosecutors, which we think will lead to better outcomes for all users of the service justice system.
Clause 8 goes to the heart of the Bill. As the House is aware, the armed forces covenant was introduced a decade ago. During that time, we have seen an irreversible, strategic shift towards looking after our people. Veterans have found work, reservists have got the time off needed to deploy, and military spouses have received further help in their careers. If we analyse last year’s annual report, we will see how the scope and effectiveness of the armed forces covenant has continued to advance: 79,000 service children in the United Kingdom now benefit from £24.5 million of additional pupil funding; 22,200 service personnel have been helped on to the housing ladder by the Forces Help to Buy scheme; and 800 GP practices in England are now accredited as veteran-friendly with more joining their ranks every day.
Despite the pandemic, we have provided cash boosts for family accommodation, introduced free breakfast and after-school clubs for military children, brought in the veterans railcard and given millions to service charities. We have come far in recent times. As someone who beat a path to the door of this Parliament to force this place to honour the nation’s responsibilities to veterans, I can genuinely say that I can feel the sands shifting under my feet, but we have further to go. Today is an historic day, as we legislate to put the armed forces covenant—that promise between the nation and those who serve—into law. What is still evident is that some members of our armed forces community are still suffering disadvantage in accessing public services. Often the provision that they get is something of a postcode lottery. When disadvantage occurs, it is often because there is little understanding of the unique nature of service in the armed forces.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I am incredibly grateful to the Minister for giving way. I welcome what he says, and we on the Labour Benches indeed support the covenant. On the issue of the postcode lottery, which is really important for my constituents in Barnsley, may I push him further and ask whether he will be introducing measurable national standards in the covenant so that there is not that postcode lottery?
Johnny Mercer
We bring out a report every year that attempts to pull together everybody’s different experiences of the covenant. We are clear that we will not prescribe specific outcomes. We want local authorities to adhere to the principles of the armed forces covenant and, because of the way that local authorities deliver their services, to have a due regard in law to consider the covenant but not to prescribe outcomes. That is reflected in the covenant report, which gives us a good firm idea of how the covenant is going down in communities such as Barnsley.
In this clause, we tackle those problems head-on. We are placing a duty to have due regard to the covenant principles on public bodies responsible for the delivery of key functions in housing, education and healthcare. We have chosen those three areas because they are the bedrock of a stable and secure life. Unsurprisingly, they are also raised by members of the armed forces community as areas of greatest concern.
Johnny Mercer
Not at this time.
The legislation does not mandate specific delivery outcomes or advantageous treatment of the armed forces community, not least because it is important that relevant public bodies retain the flexibility required to tailor decisions on service delivery to local circumstances. But the Bill will legally oblige relevant public bodies to consider the principles of the covenant when carrying out specified functions in these three areas. To support its delivery, we are also making sure that public bodies are supported by statutory guidance explaining the principles of the covenant as well as, for example, how and why members of the armed forces may experience disadvantage as a result of their service. Some will say that we are going too far, others that we have not gone far enough, but my colleagues and I carefully weighed up a number of options before devising this response.
Critically, this is just the first step. This legislation will provide the Government with the power to widen the scope of the duty to apply to additional public bodies and include other functions should it be felt beneficial in future; in other words, we are turning the covenant into a minimum requirement—a tangible tool that our service personnel and veterans can use to hold their service providers to account, a tool that has the capacity to deliver today as well as evolve and adapt as society changes.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time, and I think the whole House agrees with him on the need to enforce the armed forces covenant. Critical in any environment, whether the private sector or local authorities, is the role of the armed forces champion, a single person that anybody can go to, and it must be clear who they are. Will the Minister consider putting into the legislation that every local authority must have a designated armed forces champion?
Johnny Mercer
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. We carefully considered including such a measure, but local authorities were not supportive because they deliver the principles of the armed forces covenant through a variety of mechanisms and in different ways. They specifically mentioned to the Department and to me as the Minister that they did not want us to specify that sort of outcome, which is why we have put in the “due regard” to pay duty to the principles of the covenant and to bear them in mind when delivering public services. But, as I have said, this is legislation that we will review going forward to ensure that it is working and that it genuinely feels that it works for those who need it.
This reform is also about our broader aspiration.
Johnny Mercer
Not at this time.
By cementing the covenant in the minds of the public, we are not lowering the ceiling but are raising the floor of our collective expectations. For example, my own constituency of Plymouth, Moor View has undertaken many good initiatives to support the local service community. I want others to view their efforts not as exceptional, but rather as a new normal, just as I want my constituents to see their successes merely as a springboard to better and bigger things.
In conclusion, I began by saying that an Armed Forces Bill is always an historic moment, but, by augmenting service justice, by improving our service police and by finally enshrining the covenant into law a decade on, we are cementing its standing further still. Our armed forces people are our nation’s first and last line of defence. We depend on them, but they also depend on us, and that is why it is incumbent not just on those of us in Government but on everyone in this House to work in partnership with our counterparts in the devolved Administrations to ensure that this nation does right by those who serve, so that decades from now our future personnel will look back on this period and say, “This was the moment”—the moment when our nation finally awoke and delivered on its promise to the incredible men and women who serve our country without question or quibble and defend this proud nation and act on the will of this House; the moment when incremental strategic and irreversible change was delivered in law for our service personnel and veterans and their families. I commend this Bill to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I call the shadow Secretary of State, it will be obvious to anyone who has examined the call list that a very large number of Members wish to participate this afternoon, so there will be an immediate time limit on Back-Bench speeches of four minutes.
Johnny Mercer
First, we cannot reject a recommendation that did not exist. That was not the recommendation of the Lyons review, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows. Secondly, I have given a justification a number of times: this decision was made because we want to see more integrity and resilience in the system and agree a protocol between prosecuting jurisdictions to ensure that the system works better for everyone. What was advised was Attorney General’s consent. We have gone for better than that, and this will achieve better outcomes for our people.
John Healey
That is not an explanation of why; that is an explanation of what, and the protocol is about the what, not the why. The Government are missing the opportunity to improve the results and the confidence in how these very serious cases are dealt with. If the Minister thinks that this was not a recommendation in the Lyons report, I suggest that he re-reads it.
Secondly, and importantly, the Bill has little to say about fixing the biggest flaw in the service justice system—investigations—and it has nothing to say about investigations of overseas allegations, despite the Minister telling me on Third Reading of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill in November:
“The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne raises time and again the issue of the investigations, but he knows that they are for the forthcoming armed forces Bill and will be addressed there.”—[Official Report, 3 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 258.]
They are not. He also knows that 99% of the allegations against British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan did not make it to prosecution and would not have been affected by the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill. The Government have already had three reviews in the past five years and have more than 80 recommendations on investigation, so I urge them to work with us and with a wide range of peers in the Lords on the changes needed to that Bill.
The Minister quite rightly said that this legislation is as much about our future as our past. This is indeed five-year legislation that will take our armed forces beyond the Government’s integrated review, when it is finally published, beyond its four-year funding plan and beyond the next general election. For it to function as the future framework for our armed forces to keep this country secure, the Bill must fix the flaws that have become so clear since the last Act in 2016.
On maintaining the strength of our armed forces, there is serious concern that Britain’s full-time armed forces remain 10,000 below the total strength Ministers said was needed in the 2015 strategic defence review, and an MOD report revealed over the weekend that all but one of 33 infantry battalions are seriously short of battle-ready personnel. The Minister responded on social media to that report, saying that it is not secret but a “routine update”. I want to see Parliament use the Armed Forces Bill to mandate Ministers to report to Parliament each year on the fighting strength of our armed forces.
On maintaining the pay of our armed forces, the decade of decline since 2010 has seen military pay fall behind and with it, by the way, morale and retention. For instance, last year an Army private was getting almost £2,000 a year less than they would have done if the pay had kept pace with inflation. I want to see Parliament use this Armed Forces Bill as the basis for a debate about making the recommendations of the independent Armed Forces Pay Review Body binding on Ministers.
On justice in our armed forces, more than 6,000 personnel serve in Britain’s armed forces from overseas, mainly from the Commonwealth. Their service to our country earns them the right to live in our country, yet the Government charges huge fees to apply for British citizenship, so someone leaving the forces now with a partner and two children has a bill of almost £10,000. It is unjust; it is un-British. I want to see Parliament use the Armed Forces Bill to get Ministers to scrap these unfair fees.
Finally, on the role of reservists in our armed forces, covid has made it clear that our military are essential to our national resilience, not just our national security, and that reservists will contribute more in future to our defence capabilities. While the Government’s moves to make reservist training more flexible are sensible and welcome, I want to see Parliament use the Armed Forces Bill to deal with other problems they face, especially with employers.
In conclusion, the Minister has said to the House that he is open to proposals to improve the Bill. We will take him at his word. We will at times test his word, but we will work with the Minister if he will work with us. We will work cross-party and with a range of interests beyond Parliament to build consensus so that this Bill, when it becomes an Act, really does make the most of this opportunity to strengthen the nation’s commitment to our forces, their families and veterans.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
Let me declare at the outset that I am president of the Scots Guards Association for veterans and have been for nearly 20 years.
I pay tribute to all Members who have spoken in this debate. Looking after our veterans and our armed forces does not belong to any one political party, nor to any one Member of Parliament. Reflecting on the contribution from the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), one would easily be forgiven for thinking that serving personnel’s experience of the armed forces is that they all live in substandard accommodation, have an awful time and want to leave. One would also think that the veterans in this country are not enjoying successful careers, becoming incredibly employable, working hard, contributing to society and using their skills. Up and down this country, tens of thousands—nay, even hundreds of thousands—of people who have enjoyed service to this country, whether short or long, show those skills to all and sundry. They show their loyalty to their country, they show their patriotism, they show their ability to work, and they are incredibly employable.
For many people, the system works and they have a great time in the services. For many people, the best part of their lives—probably the best part of my life—was as a serving soldier in the armed forces. Was it perfect? No. Did I lose 30% of my sight? Yes. Did I find myself rushed to hospital being told that they would not save my sight? Yes. Did I feel slightly abandoned when afterwards, with a one-inch gash in my eyeball, I woke up alone in a hospital in west Belfast, and did not really know how to transition? Yes. But do I regret a minute of my service? No. Do I regret the skills it gave me? No. Do the hundreds of thousands of veterans in this country regret it? No.
It is true, however, that for a proportion of veterans and serving personnel, all is not well, and we all recognise in this House that we could always do more and do better. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) made the very important point that the journey never ends. The reason the journey never ends is that conflict never ends, and the nature of conflict never ends. The distance between society and the people who serve in the armed forces—fewer and fewer people—never ends. The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), who is a very thoughtful Member of this House who seeks the best for the armed forces, and, as a member of the Scottish National party, is always open to listening, understanding and exploring ideas, made the very real point that there are fewer and fewer serving personnel in society and the gap between the understanding of what they do and what others do is growing greater. We must address that.
This Bill is a good step in the right direction. It improves many of the things that in my day were not even really in existence. I served as a member of the armed forces under both a Conservative Government and a Labour Government. If we just consider the treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder—the transition and liaison service, the complex treatment service and the high-intensity service now delivered by the NHS for the mental welfare of our veterans—we can see that all that is much, much better; a step change from what it was.
This Bill takes another step forward—it goes further—because clause 8 puts the armed forces covenant into law. As the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, this has been a long journey. It started off with a charter, then a Green Paper, then it became a duty to report, and now this is a step forward whereby we will put a duty on a number of services to pay regard to the covenant.
The Bill is also a step forward in improving the assurances around investigations, which many Opposition Members said during the passage of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill was something that is missing. It is about improving the quality and the independence of those investigations, alongside that of the prosecutions and the judiciary. It is about improving the training so that our soldiers—men and women of our armed forces—are never again in the position they were in in the early years of the Iraq war, where they were accused of war crimes when they thought they were simply doing what they were trained to do. That happened because the training had fallen far behind the development of the law and human rights legislation.
Many Members called for the Bill to go wider and deeper, and I will do my best to respond, given that nearly 60 colleagues spoke during the debate. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) suggested a £500 thank you payment to our troops in the same way as was provided for NHS workers in Scotland. She also said that we could do more in health and education. The Scottish Parliament has those devolved powers, and there is nothing to stop the Government of Scotland tomorrow morning doing even more on a whole range of issues to support the covenant.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) pointed out the excellent report produced by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), “Living in our Shoes”—an extremely good piece of work. As Secretary of State for Defence, I have not only listened to and read the reports from my colleagues and from Select Committees on issues such as protecting veterans and legacy, but have made sure that the Department does not put those reports on the shelf and ignore them. I believe that many of our colleagues have some of the best ideas, and throughout the conduct of this Bill, I assure the House that the Government will be open to suggestions about how to improve it. Everyone in the Government will be interested in doing that, because we all have that interest at heart.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and many others raised the issue of Northern Ireland veterans. I refer him to the written ministerial statement on 18 March by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and add that we are all keen to get the legacy over the line as well. My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) gave us an insight into what it means to be a commanding officer, having to discipline soldiers and balance military discipline with the needs of the unit, sometimes on operations—that experience is unique. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) referred to his experiences as a magistrate in the civilian world. I have sat on a court martial in the military world—before the reforms—but the military world and the civil world are different, so that is a unique experience.
The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire talked about why it is always the military that is called upon to do the resilience. The fundamental reason is how we are trained: it is the pressure, the different discipline and structure, and often the difference between life and death in operations. There is no need to always replicate that across society. It is a unique experience—a unique set of circumstances—because only we in the armed forces are called upon to kill or be killed. It is a unique thing, one that we often take with us for the rest of our lives, and that is why we provide resilience at pace in anything from a pandemic to flooding and snowstorms. That will always continue, because that is the very nature of why our armed forces are special, and we must make sure we protect that special nature. At the same time, we must modernise welfare and aftercare for our troops, but the military is different, and will always be different.
That is why when it comes to co-jurisdiction, there is the obvious difficulty around murder, manslaughter, rape and other offences, but there are many serious offences. There is attempted murder; there is grievous bodily harm; there is armed robbery. Why is it okay for those offences to remain in a service system, but it is recommended that three other offences be potentially removed into a civil system? It is perfectly legitimate to argue against the concept of service justice, although I would disagree, but if we accept that there is such a concept, where we draw the line has to balance the needs of the victim with those of the accused. That is why I think the solution we came up with, which was not the Lyons recommendation of Attorney General consent—which can happen behind closed doors—but consent based on an open and transparent protocol that will be decided between the Crown Prosecution Service and the service justice fraternity, was the right one.
I will just make one other point on this topic, because a number of colleagues make this mistake: the service justice system is independent. I do not appoint the judge advocate; I do not appoint the judges; I do not interfere with the police and the justice system, in the same way that the Home Secretary or the Lord Chancellor do. It is independent. People seem to think that it is all cosy because we are in the armed forces, and that we sit around and choose who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. We do not. Yes, the service justice system and the quality of investigations have been found wanting over many years. That is why we commissioned the Lyons report, and it is why Sir Richard Henriques has been commissioned to increase the assurance, because that is the best way to make sure we do not constantly get taken to court under article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and to ensure that people are not dragged through the courts. We will continue to do that.
The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) talked about the need for the 16-year-olds. In response to his question, I urge him to visit the Army Foundation College in Harrogate—I will happily make that possible.
All I will say in conclusion is that at their heart, our armed forces are about the people. Over the next few months, we will have debates about equipment, integrated reviews, and which service wins over which—which regiments do and do not—but in the end, if we do not invest in our people, we will not have anything for the future of our armed forces.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Armed Forces Bill (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Armed Forces Bill:
Select Committee
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Select Committee.
(2) The Select Committee shall report the Bill to the House on or before 29 April 2021.
Committee of the whole House, Consideration and Third Reading
(3) On report from the Select Committee, the Bill shall be re-committed to a Committee of the whole House.
(4) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House on recommittal, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall be taken in one day in accordance with the following provisions of this Order.
(5) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House and any proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which proceedings in Committee of the whole House are commenced.
(6) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
Programming committee
(7) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to proceedings on Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(8) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Question agreed to.
Armed Forces Bill (Money)
Queen’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Armed Forces Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Question agreed to.
Armed Forces Bill (Carry-Over)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 80A(1)(a)),
That if, at the conclusion of this Session of Parliament, proceedings on the Armed Forces Bill have not been completed, they shall be resumed in the next Session.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Question agreed to.
Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 9(6)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill:
(1) The Committee shall have 16 members, to be nominated by the Committee of Selection.
(2) The Committee shall have power—
(a) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place and to report from day to day the minutes of evidence taken before it;
(b) to admit the public during the examination of witnesses and during consideration of the Bill (but not otherwise); and
(c) to appoint specialist advisers either to supply information not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity relating to the provisions of the Bill.
(3) The Order of the House of 24 March 2020 (Select Committees (Participation and Reporting) (Temporary Order)) shall apply to the Committee as if it had the power to report from time to time.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Question agreed to.