Armed Services: Claims

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for introducing this exceptionally important debate today. I have to say that I did not expect to be number two in the speakers list, and I will have to disappoint the noble and learned Lord a little bit because I do not claim to be an expert on legal matters.

If I were asked what advice I would give to a young person considering joining the Armed Forces, I would be tempted—tempted—to say, “Don’t”. The first reason is that we are woefully ill prepared to deter conflict, a subject I will cover in greater detail in another debate in the near future. Secondly, if he or she has to take vigorous action in dealing with opposing forces while acting entirely within the intent of commanders on the ground, the chain of command seems to be completely powerless to protect them from extremely unpleasant legal claims and investigations, as outlined by the noble and learned Lord.

Not only do service people have to accept the obvious difficulties of military service and training, they now have to accept the interference of lawyers in questionable circumstances. Therefore my admiration of those who do step up to the plate is even more enhanced, if that is possible. I can assure the House that this situation is having an adverse effect on morale, and I have to say that the reputation of the legal profession and the legal system within the Armed Forces is not very good, although many who will no doubt read Hansard and the speech of the noble and learned Lord will perhaps be a little more reassured.

If we are to have young men and women live and work closely together, operate lethal equipment and, when required, engage the enemy, obviously we need to have a very effective system of military discipline. My noble friend the Minister has never hesitated to stress this to your Lordships. If noble Lords cannot stomach that, then do not have Armed Forces at all and rely on someone else to keep us safe. Unfortunately, it seems to me that we have moved away from having a system of military discipline with appropriate checks and balances to a vain attempt to have a perfect system of military justice. The former ensures that the needs of the majority are not sacrificed to meet the needs of a small and often undeserving minority, while the latter does the opposite, is extremely slow and therefore unfair.

Some of the changes that we have introduced in recent years have had an odd effect. In the past, we were engaged in very few hot operations and we legislated accordingly, whereas nowadays it is not unusual to have troops in contact. I recall in the late 1990s when my noble friend the Minister and I were opposition Front Bench spokesmen for defence and the noble Lord took a Statement in the House because our forces had taken out a warlord in the Balkans—a Statement on something like that; something that now our forces are doing practically every week. How times have changed.

But the odd effect is this: in the past, a commanding officer acting on legal advice could legally condone an action on the part of his subordinate or dismiss charges. For the service person, that was the end of the matter, with a few exceptions. Now, to meet the obligations arising from earlier cases, we have a system independent of the chain of command for determining whether a service person is to be prosecuted. That means that no one in the chain of command, not even Ministers, can halt an investigation or even interfere with it. I suspect that they cannot even ask for a proper briefing on it. I believe that the turmoil for the service person under investigation can continue for as long as the system wants. We must change this. That does not mean that I will tolerate misconduct on operations—far from it. The House will recall my very strong support for the Minister regarding a case involving a Royal Marines NCO who was convicted of murder. It was an extremely unpleasant task for me, but it had to be done. So I agree with everything that the noble and learned Lord has said, and look forward to the Minister’s response.