Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my somewhat technical interest. I support the Motion in the name of my noble friend the Minister. I echo some of the observations about Russia made by my noble friend Lord Jopling. We know that it is an economic basket case with a GDP equivalent to that of Italy. It makes little that is good enough to export to the rest of the world, apart from armaments, and is far too reliant on mineral wealth. To cap it all, it has a perfectly rotten system of justice and the rule of law, which will make it very hard for ordinary, decent Russians to construct a healthy, modern economy. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds made important points about the nature of Russia and its population. It is also important to understand that the Kremlin’s map of the world will look very different from the one in the Ministry of Defence. Its leader has no regard for an international rules-based world order and, unfortunately, many of his population hold him in high regard. That might change, however, if his armed forces took a number of casualties. In other words, Mr Putin cannot afford to get a bloody nose.

Russian armed forces have some good capabilities but they are not balanced and have weaknesses as well. Mr Putin’s strategic objective must be to break up NATO and Article 5 by intervening in the Baltic states, possibly by using Russian-speaking minorities as an excuse, as other noble Lords have said. I warmly applaud the Government for not being overreactive and provocative and for avoiding the trap of deploying at medium scale. A battalion group lays out a thin red line, or trip wire, while avoiding the expense of deploying at medium scale, which would fix a large proportion of our deployable combat power. At the same time, Mr Putin is incurring the cost of having large numbers of troops deployed, or at least at high readiness. However, we need to take special care to monitor the position of Russian-speaking minorities, as referred to by my noble friend Lord Jopling and other noble Lords.

Several noble Lords have referred to difficulties with the carrier programme. Yes, it is a capability that we do not yet have in place, but when we do have full operating capability it will be game-changing. Of the western states, only the Americans, the French and we will be able to deploy a carrier battle group to support a brigade deployed out of area. We should be positive and look forward to the increased capacity to be a force for good when the carriers come on stream. They are not in service today, but we do not face an existential threat today. It is perfectly clear, however, that we do not have enough surface warships or submarines and we need to do something about this. Perhaps addressing this concern properly will be unavoidable when the carriers start being deployed. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, suggested that we might have to deploy two carrier battle groups at once. Clearly, we could always have one carrier available, but I believe there is no intention to operate two groups at the same time. We do not have the resources to do that.

Many noble Lords have talked about manning, which is of great concern to me and others. I am content for Regular Army phase 1 soldiers to be counted as part of the trained strength of the British Army. This is because most of them will be trained to a basic trade standard quite soon—in most cases within, say, six months—after phase 1. In addition, they would have some military utility even if not fully qualified at trade. Furthermore, in a period of heightened international tension it would be possible to retain fully trained regulars currently in service, especially in terms of PVR and manning control points. The same cannot be said for a phase 1 trained reservist. I have to be blunt: they may well have attended only a few training weekends prior to a two-week recruits’ course. Conversely, a regular’s phase 1 training course would be about 15 weeks. After reservist recruits’ course, they will attend a few weekend training exercises, but they will gain military experience at a painfully slow rate. They will really learn to be effective only after they have completed their initial trade course and at least one annual camp. Anyone who thinks that a phase 1-trained reservist has military utility is living in a fool’s paradise.

Everywhere I look outside defence, there is a problem with insufficient professional and technical engineers. Pay has been more or less frozen everywhere in public service and conditions reformed—we know what that means. Forgetting the problems with MPs and Ministers, we see problems with getting QCs to be judges because the pay is so poor that it is not worth doing. In Parliament, we have problems recruiting IT technicians. We face similar problems in the Armed Forces. You can have public sector pay freezes for only so long. Careers advisers have a duty to school leavers to brief them honestly about career opportunities and the likely rewards. The Armed Forces simply do not have as good an offer as they used to. The Treasury appears to be interfering with the implementation of the conclusions of the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body. I agree with everything said by the noble Baroness, Lady Dean.

There is something else that parents and careers advisers need to take into account. The Armed Forces were always a hard taskmaster. Nevertheless, a good serviceperson could be confident that, if they did the right thing—especially on operations—they would be backed by the chain of command and, ultimately, by Ministers on behalf of the sovereign. That is no longer the case: noble Lords need only to think about the IHAT inquiry. It also does not seem to be a problem to torment an old-age pensioner about some incident that occurred decades ago, which was thoroughly investigated by the authorities at the time and many of the witnesses to which have since sadly passed away. There is nothing wrong with our Ministers, but for one reason or another they are powerless to intervene.

Serving on military or aid operations is a risky business, so we need courageous, able and prudent risk-takers for this activity. Defence Ministers may point to reasonable recruiting and retention figures, but I fear that prudent risk-takers will shy away from the Armed Forces and the gap in numbers could, to some extent, be made up with—shall we say?—not such good quality. Of course, it will be exceptionally difficult to measure the difference, and impossible for the Treasury.

I will say a few words about the need for large-scale—more than one brigade—overseas deployment exercises. The whole point of having credible Armed Forces is to be able to deter aggression. It is immaterial how much is spent on defence if your opponent is not convinced that you can inflict unacceptable harm on him using conventional forces. There is also the risk of overestimating one’s own readiness and capability and then overlooking any weaknesses. Of course these exercises have a marginal cost, but it might be better to spend slightly less on capability and more on exercises if one can increase one’s conventional deterrent effect. In this connection, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever for his work with Oman. I look forward to the Minister making an announcement about Exercise Saif Sareea at some point in the future.

The world is far less stable than in the early 1990s, when I first made a contribution to a defence debate in your Lordships’ House. Nevertheless, we should be proud of what we do and aspire to do even better.

NATO: Member State Spending

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, for introducing his QSD. I remind the House of my technical interest. While I agree with some of his points, I am a little disappointed with his approach. He complains about creative accounting, but so far as I can see, the United Kingdom’s 2% is totally compliant with the NATO guidelines. Furthermore, noble Lords should note that gendarmeries, carabinieri or forces of that type can also be included in the 2% figure, provided they are realistically deployable. We have no such forces. The term “realistically deployable” is very elastic. I would be very surprised if other EU states are not taking advantage of it.

From what the noble Lord told the House, I hope we can look forward to a commitment on his party’s part in its next election manifesto to increasing defence expenditure—my noble friend the Minister and my party would then have to match that commitment—while maintaining a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent.

The honest answer to the noble Lord’s Question is “not very much progress”, because other NATO states are quite happy to have Article 5 protection without having to pay for it. I am sure that my noble friend will have a positive reply to the QSD. UK Ministers and officials will of course constantly pressurise other EU states to increase their defence expenditure, but they are sovereign states. The UK itself cannot be faulted. Despite economic challenges the UK still meets the 2% target—yes, I know with a little bit of creative accounting—and the 0.7% of GDP target on international aid: a proud record indeed. Of course, it is not just hard power, but soft power. We do both.

In case any noble Lords think that I am a sycophantic Back-Bencher, I gently point out to my noble friend that 2% of GDP is not enough in the current circumstances. Secondly, I remind him that, as we have said, the United States is spending 3.5% of GDP on defence. I suspect that that is a bit too much, but noble Lords can see why the United States is getting a bit fed up with our EU partners not pulling their weight.

It is a question not just of what percentage of GDP we spend on defence—of course, percentage of GDP is the only sensible comparable measure. The UK has been very careful to have a balanced capability. We spend on the right things. There is no point having a row of shiny platforms when the equipment is not sustainable, you cannot move it to where it is needed, or you have no ISTAR capability to determine where the enemy is. We are not perfect in this regard—noble Lords have mentioned maritime patrol aircraft, but that was capability management: the threat has increased slightly, so we have decided to bring back a maritime patrol aircraft capability—but overall, we have a very good record of capability management and having a balanced capability.

Everything has a Brexit dimension nowadays. According to a calculation done on my behalf by the Library, without the UK, the EU 27 will spend only 1.18% of GDP on defence. The noble Lord, Lord Clark, put it slightly differently by saying that 80% of NATO defence expenditure would be from outside the EU. Clearly, the US will not tolerate this for ever.

As a nation, we should be proud of what we do to keep ourselves, our partners and our friends around the world safe and secure. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will have a robust reply.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, this debate takes place at a time of considerable instability in the world, but it is easy to forget that, apart from the horrors of Syria and aspects of the Middle East and Ukraine, the world is far more peaceful than it has ever been. The danger is one of complacency. I would not accuse the noble Earl who has just sat down of being a sycophantic Back-Bencher—I will leave him to decide that—but I am just a bit worried about complacency.

I raised two years ago the rapid rise in Russian defence spending—I think that at that time it was 10%. I was concerned that such an increase indicated why Russia was thinking of developing its potential. We have seriously underestimated President Putin’s intentions, particularly in Syria and to a considerable extent in Ukraine and elsewhere, as well as—and totally unexpected by me—in the world of cyber warfare. Those are serious threats to the stability of the world. One then has an unknown entity in the form of President Trump and an unknown situation in relation to Europe and Brexit. So instability should be our watchword. If instability exists—this goes back to something my noble friend Lord Touhig said in his excellent introduction—we should be mindful of the statement that if you want peace, you should prepare for war. We should perhaps bear that in mind, too, in relation to defence spending, because 2% is probably too low in the present circumstances. I know of all the economic difficulties, but if we want peace—which I think we all do—we must recognise that until human beings have better ways of keeping peace, this is probably the best way of doing it.

There is another point which is profoundly important. My noble friend Lord Touhig referred to pensions, particularly civilian pensions, and contributions to United Nations peacekeeping and so on being included in the defence budget. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, read out the excellent and helpful list that is available from the Library of the expenditure of other countries on defence. The issue is not just one of creative accountancy, as the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said; it is also that if we are claiming that we can include those things in our defence expenditure then so also can those countries that the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, read out. If we think of how little some of them are paying and if they have the same practice, it would be very useful for the House to know—I am sure that the Minister will not be able to answer right now—what the accountancy procedure is in those various countries. If they are including things such as pensions and contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, the position is even more serious than I thought.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, that was exactly my point about gendarmeries and the carabinieri. I put it very clumsily, but it was exactly that point.

[Lord Soley]

I accept that clarification; it is very helpful. I must admit that I am more concerned in a way about things such as pensions, particularly civilian pensions. What on earth are we doing including those in defence spending? If I was in Luxembourg right now, I would be thinking very hard about our accountancy system. I say to the Minister and to my own Front Bench that we should ask all NATO members to spell out what is included in that defence spending. I would not expect to see pensions and contributions to United Nations peace- keeping. We should take quite a hard line on that because, if we did, the figures would look much worse, but at least we could address the matter more seriously.

Register of Hereditary Peers

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as the Government’s manifesto made clear, we believe that the size of the House should be addressed, and that is the issue primarily being addressed by the committee set up by the Lord Speaker. However, we also made it clear that with so many pressing legislative priorities, not least those stemming from the result of the UK referendum, comprehensive reform is not a priority during this Parliament. We do not wish to close to our minds to that idea. A good case can be made for comprehensive reform, and it is worth remembering that in the last Parliament the Government put forward a Bill that would have made 80% of the eligible membership elected.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, surely one of the most pressing problems is the fact that we are so horribly Londoncentric.

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend raises an issue which I believe has often been addressed in the past, but again it is not beyond the scope of the committee that has been established by the Lord Speaker. However, it is difficult to address that issue satisfactorily if one is going to be fair across the whole country.

Brexit: Armed Forces and Diplomatic Service

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sterling for introducing this debate and I remind the House of my somewhat technical interest. Regarding the short procedural debate that we had this morning, I have to leave the Chamber at 2.45 pm to catch a train to see the doctor and I crave your Lordships’ indulgence to let me escape.

First, I share the concerns of all noble Lords who say that we are not spending enough money on defence, even though we are meeting the 2% target. If your Lordships should complain that this is only so with the assistance of accountants, we can be confident that other NATO states do exactly the same thing but still come up with only pitifully small numbers. I am not sure what the point is of having much closer co-ordination with other EU states when they have so little to co-ordinate. By the way, multinational battlegroups are political units and not military units. It seems that the more recent accession states, which get the most excited about pure free movement in the context of Brexit, are the very same states which are most reliant on the UK’s military muscle. With the exception of Poland and Estonia, they mostly fail dismally in terms of percentage of GDP spent on defence. Furthermore, many of these states rely upon the City of London to handle some of their sovereign debts, so they need to tread carefully with financial services and Brexit.

NATO will of course remain the cornerstone of our security and that is not likely to change. I suspect that reality will set in even with Mr Trump—unless of course Mr Putin manages to break that cornerstone, especially the Article 5 commitment. I cannot imagine our excellent Secretary of State, Sir Michael Fallon, allowing that to happen. The UK provides a very significant proportion of the total EU defence capability, and over the next few years that capability will be significantly enhanced. The EU absolutely needs the UK to remain prosperous if the UK is to continue to help keep everyone safe in Europe. It seems to me that much the easiest way of dealing with conflict is to deter it. On the other hand, if you suffer an incursion it is extremely difficult and expensive to deal with, as you would need to muster at least three times the combat power of your opponent to turf him out, if it is possible at all. That is why the Government’s measured approach to supporting the Baltic states and other states is right. It is a statement of resolve, without being too provocative.

While we may worry that we are not expending enough effort on defence, relative to most other EU states we offer an extraordinary capability which will be enhanced in the next few years. For instance, even the United States has only 11 full-sized aircraft carriers in operation and we will always have one available, which can operate in conjunction with the French “Charles de Gaulle”. This will be a huge leap in strategic capability. We have now stated an intent to be able to deploy at divisional level against a peer opponent. That is welcome although at 180 days, the period of notice is a bit too long. Most importantly, our forces are balanced so that, for instance, we do not have a row of shiny jets but not the foggiest clue where the enemy is. Not only do we have significant combat forces available, matched in the EU only by France; we are becoming increasingly effective at bringing to bear all the nation’s security apparatus to deal with current challenges in a well co-coordinated manner.

I want to draw your Lordships’ attention to the need for a large-scale divisional all-arms deployment exercise. First, we need to demonstrate to a potential adversary that we can deploy and manoeuver two brigades in the area of operation, and that this is not a pipe dream. Secondly, it is easy to forget how difficult and important logistics are. Some seem to think the new strike brigades will be able to move 1,000 kilometres in the area of operations without traditional levels of combat service support. We need to test that theory as soon as possible after the new brigades are operational. Finally, yes, we can do computer-simulated exercises to train and test the staff and commanders on their procedures and planning processes, but that is not the same as having thousands of troops and platforms manoeuvring around in the area of operations. I know that an Exercise Saif Sareea will take place in 2018 but I am concerned about its scale. Will it merely be a battle-group exercise, which will test nothing, or will it be a proper, fully bombed-up brigade manoeuvring around in the area of operations?

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.

Armed Forces: Foreign Language Speakers

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Grand Committee

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that I still hold a commission in the Reserves, although it is extremely unlikely that I will ever be active again. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for initiating this QSD.

There are many difficulties with engaging local interpreters on an operation. It is hard to be sure that they are reliable and secure. It puts the interpreters in a difficult position when we eventually withdraw, and even when they go home, perhaps at the weekend. Noble Lords have frequently debated the difficulties that we have incurred with regard to honouring our moral obligations to locally employed interpreters from our operations in Afghanistan.

Another difficulty with local interpreters is that the other local party will try to negotiate with the interpreter rather than the British officer. It is of course possible that the discussions that the interpreter and the local party are engaged in are nothing at all to do with what the British officer thought they were supposed to be talking about. Fortunately, I assure the Committee that in my personal experience, pre-deployment training in the British Army includes how to use an interpreter. It is not like what we see in films when an interpreter has a long chat with the other party; in fact, you carefully let them use only one sentence at a time. It is therefore much more difficult for them to start going off-piste.

Being able to speak the local language is a huge advantage. When I was engaged in international work in Rwanda, I will never forget the look of horror on the face of the government official when I turned up without a local interpreter and started speaking French. I expect this was on two counts: first, the lost advantage for him of working through a local interpreter and, secondly, my not particularly good French. On many occasions they suddenly remembered that they could speak English after all. If one does have to use a local interpreter, only a basic working capability in the local language will be needed to ensure that the interpretation is reasonably reliable and not going off-piste.

The short answer to the noble Lord’s question is no. The first reason is that we do not know which local language will be applicable to the next major operation, or whether it will be enduring or just a short intervention. Of course, as the noble Lord indicated, there is a need to have modern European languages, but I am talking particularly about the local language of the operation. It is simply not worth investing in huge amounts of language training that may never be needed. All that I have said is perfectly understandable, and I think the noble Lord agrees.

The second reason is not so good, and it is that we are very poor at putting in place a language capability even for enduring operations. So far as the regular Army is concerned, incentives for service people to acquire a capability in the local language of current operations are available, but I am not convinced they are sufficient to encourage so many to take it up that the need for local interpreters is significantly reduced.

How much overall do we pay service people to maintain the capability to deploy by parachute drop, and how does this compare with how much we pay in incentives to have the capability in the local language of any operations? I asked a Written Question about when we last deployed at company strength by parachute drop. Apparently it was the second most unhelpful Question that the MoD could be asked. The first is something to do with the RAF, although to be fair the answer to that question has a lot more to do with a successful defence policy over many years.

It is not just officers who could benefit from language training. A full corporal in the regular British Army is an extremely capable person but it may be that his trade, or his type of unit, is not required for the current operation. If they are any good, they will be desperate to “go on tour”, as they say. Being an interpreter for, say, a local liaison officer would be a fabulous opportunity for a junior NCO. Only a fairly modest financial incentive would be needed to encourage regular NCOs of any service to acquire a language of a current operation, and, of course, a certain proportion of service people will turn out to be gifted in languages.

I turn to the Army Reserve, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison. To be honest, a junior direct entry reserve infantry officer with no previous regular service would find it hard to get the chance to deploy in role on an operation; it really does not happen that much. I will spare the Minister’s blushes by not asking how many such officers we have.

Suppose that in 1993 a junior TA officer, on his own initiative, learned to speak Serbo-Croat at conversational level—possibly achieved by engaging with a local diaspora. In the mid to late-1990s, he or she would have been able to deploy in operations almost as often as desired. The military skills of such an officer would be perfectly adequate for the role of interpreter or local liaison officer, and they could have a very fulfilling tour.

My counsel is that we should have much better financial incentives for regular service people at junior level, both officer and enlisted, who acquire an operational local language as directed. We should also very strongly encourage reservists to acquire the operational local language with the clear expectation that they would be able to deploy. It needs to be managed. If we had this policy in place, we could increase our operational effectiveness and reduce reliance on local interpreters, with all the ensuing problems. Finally, I say to my noble friend the Minister: good luck with the Treasury.

Iraq Inquiry

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I have an interest to declare because I was a TA officer serving in Kuwait and Iraq in early 2003. I was serving as a G1/G4 ops watchkeeper in HQ DSG, part of 1 (UK) Armoured Division.

Before I was called up on 26 February 2003, I was the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman for defence in your Lordships’ House. While I thought the “dodgy dossier” was appropriately named, I honestly had faith in the Prime Minister. I thought that perhaps the officials were telling him that he had to deal with Saddam Hussein then or he would never be able to deal with him. I believed it my duty to believe the Prime Minister on a matter of national security. During the run-up to the operation, Dr El Baradei had more or less told us that there was no nuclear threat from Saddam, and in the HQ and in the theatre we honestly believed that we faced a threat from imminent chemical attack and it was not just some conspiracy in No. 10.

My noble friend Lord King mentioned the Maxwellisation process. It seems to me that Maxwellisation is an invitation to witnesses to be as economical as possible with the quantity of evidence, safe in the knowledge that if the inquiry gets a bit too close they can give further details.

Mr Blair and I had privileged upbringings. We were both privately educated and many of our teachers would have served in the Second World War and had a terrible time. My teachers drummed into me time and again that war is to be avoided at all possible costs. Nevertheless, they also ensured that we knew how to defend our nation, particularly in respect of leadership, so I am not quite sure what went wrong.

There are some good aspects to this. The SDR 1998, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, was a particularly good defence review. It recognised that we would be getting into expeditionary warfare. We practised it with Exercise Saif Sareea in Oman in 2001, and we learned a lot of lessons. Some tried to suggest that Labour Ministers deployed UK forces on Op Telic 1 ill trained and inadequately equipped for the military task that had been set for them. They did no such thing. The problems, as we know, were with the legality and the necessity of the operation and with post-conflict planning, but I have no issue at all with the way that Op Telic 1 was conducted. It was a brilliant operation, very rapidly executed.

Initially, up until December 2002, the plan was to deploy through Turkey with a British armoured brigade and two logistic brigades. Then, in December, the plan was changed to go in through the south of Iraq with an armoured brigade, a commando brigade and an air mobile brigade. This was a massive change in plan; nevertheless, we were ready to cross the start line in early March 2003. That was very fast indeed—it gave little time for our opponents to prepare and its speed minimised our casualties. Of course, once a force is deployed, you cannot leave it deployed very long. You have to recognise that your own forces will never be perfectly prepared and the longer you wait, the better prepared your opponents will be. It is not generally recognised that only the US, UK, France and Russia can deploy an armoured formation out of area, away from their own land mass. Other nations simply cannot do it; they lack both the physical and conceptual components to do so.

I want to dispel a few myths. Take the matter of body armour, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. When I mobilised I was issued with brand-new body armour at Chilwell, as were all the other people being mobilised. Yes, there was a shortage of body armour in theatre. Body armour is very heavy and I suspect that what happened was that some enterprising quartermaster put his unit’s body armour in an ISO container in order to allow the troops to carry more of their own gear into theatre, not realising how fast we were going to move. We ended up in the situation that we were short of about 600 sets of body armour in theatre and the logistical system is simply not geared up to deal with that sort of problem. Unfortunately, the fact that we did not have a system of tracking the ISO shipping containers was a problem, but that is not a reason for not deploying. I am very sorry to have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that the reality is that body armour, no matter how good—unless you cannot pick it up—will not protect a soldier from a burst of fire from a general-purpose machine gun mounted on a vehicle. You simply do not have a snowflake’s chance in a blast furnace.

I can say, years later, that I am ashamed of some of the attacks made by my honourable friends on Labour Ministers. They should have known better. Parliamentarians have to understand that it is impossible to engage in war-fighting operations without taking numerous casualties. I have said before and I will say again that the attention we pay to each casualty is inversely proportionate to the number of casualties we take. Some outside the House think that the MoD, the staff and senior officers have a sort of “Blackadder” attitude to taking casualties. They do not. In every HQ, at every level, every casualty hurts like hell. I know; I have been there.

Now I will say a word about protective ability. In late May 2003 I was running around Basra province in a soft-skin Land Rover. I was heavily armed, with a Browning 9 millimetre pistol, my body armour was somewhere in the back of the Land Rover, and I hoped that my driver had remembered to bring his rifle. We did not need anything more: it was a benign environment. It was only later, when the post-conflict plan was unravelling and we lost the consent of the people, that it became a dangerous environment.

The report observes that MoD staff in the UK were preoccupied with the FRES programme—a new armoured vehicle programme. The danger with buying a large UOR fleet is that you end up with a wide range of flat platforms with different build standards, and no plan for sustaining the fleet in the future. I am sorry to say that that is exactly what we have now—as I am sure Mr Putin’s military advisers are well aware.

The shocking part of the report is not the intelligence failures but the late consideration of the legal issues, the total lack of Cabinet government, and the problem in involving Ministers, such as Defence Ministers and Foreign Office Ministers, at all levels. Finally, I would like to say that the blame does not all lie with Labour Ministers. My noble friend Lord Dobbs touched on the role of Her Majesty’s Opposition. I am not clear, and the report does not cover, what role Her Majesty’s Opposition took in asking the very difficult questions of Ministers. If they had done that, the outcome might have been different.

Armed Forces Deployment (Royal Prerogative) Bill [HL]

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Friday 8th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on the way in which she explained the purpose of her Bill. She has much experience in international affairs and we benefit greatly from it. If I wanted to draft a Bill to have the same effect as that of the noble Baroness, it would have more or less the same provisions. I was not surprised when she told the House that the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, was heavily involved in the drafting. It is obvious that the noble Baroness has carefully researched this matter.

I must declare an interest as I think that I am still commissioned in the Army Reserve—but not for very long, because my 60th birthday is rushing up in October. However, I served in Iraq in the spring of 2003.

Some say that we should not effect major constitutional change by means of Private Members’ Bills. I disagree, the obvious recent precedent being the European Union (Referendum) Bill, which my party tried to get through as a Private Member’s Bill. The House decided in the end not to pass it. I believe that the noble Baroness is using the correct parliamentary tool to achieve her objective. She is not seeking merely to have the Government do or stop doing something; she is seeking to change the law and the constitution.

However, I am concerned about the number of Private Members’ Bills going through and being passed by your Lordships’ House that would be unlikely to find favour if your Lordships decided to vote on the matter. Some noble Lords think that it is a convention in this House not to kill a Private Member’s Bill, but it is a statistic not a convention. In other words, I have seen a few Private Members’ Bills that were so objectionable to noble Lords that they decided not to proceed with them past Second Reading.

If a noble Lord proposes a Private Member’s Bill that is on a small regulatory matter, be it deregulatory or putting a little regulation in, and the House acquiesces in it, I do not see that as a huge problem—we all know perfectly well that such a Bill might not find favour in the House of Commons, so we do not get too excited about it. However, if your Lordships pass a Bill of major constitutional and security significance, the general public may erroneously believe that it represents the considered view of your Lordships’ House when it does not.

I have serious objections to this Bill. If your Lordships did not have other, very pressing matters in hand, I would have tabled a fatal amendment to the Second Reading. The noble Baroness is held in very high regard in your Lordships’ House and I would not dream of taking such action without giving her at least seven to 10 days’ notice, so I just ran out of time to do it.

I do not support even the evolving convention that the House of Commons should vote on a military deployment, both for parliamentary and for practical reasons. Such decisions should be made by the whole Cabinet after detailed discussions and with relevant JIC reports in front of them as the well as the JIC. Most importantly, the leaking of any such discussions by Cabinet members should come under the Official Secrets Act, The Prime Minister should make it quite clear that if any Cabinet Minister leaks details of such a discussion he will charge the security services with finding out where the leak came from, using all necessary resources to find out. That is because it is deeply damaging to national security to have these leaks, which is why Mr Blair used sofa government; he could not trust other members of the Cabinet to have a detailed and frank discussion about the issues. I hope that if I had been sat at that Cabinet table—I obviously do not have the capability of doing that, but if I did—I would have said, “This 45-minute claim. Does it relate to battlefield weapons or strategic weapons? Is the source signals intelligence or human intelligence?” As a Cabinet Minister, I would expect to get the answers to those questions and, if I did not, I would have to consider my position.

Conversely, Parliament is unsuitable because it does not have all the intelligence available. It cannot get answers to the obvious questions. I remember when your Lordships debated whether we should invade Iraq. I remember noble friends saying, “Fine. I’m sure we’ve got the combat power to get the regime to collapse, but what happens afterwards?” We were told, “Oh don’t worry about that”, but actually that is why the campaign failed, as Operation Telic 1 was a brilliant operation—I will address it when we discuss Chilcot. I do not believe that it is right for parliamentarians to make such decisions without access to the information that they need, and they cannot have it for obvious reasons. Of course, I fully agree that, if we do go to war, it is a matter for the Commons to agree or acquiesce with that decision. We can express our view, but it is very much a matter for the elected House.

There are many problems with the noble Baroness’s Bill. First, an opponent may miscalculate the resolution of the UK by believing that the House of Commons will vote against the resolution or the Whips in the House of Commons will calculate that the Government would lose such a vote. That could have serious consequences for the diplomatic effort that should be taking place before you go kinetic. It might make conflict more likely rather than less likely. We only need to think of the Falklands conflict—I see the noble Lord, Lord West, is in his place—where it appeared that the Argentinians miscalculated our resolve.

I am not saying that there should be no parliamentary involvement or no check on the Executive. The noble Baroness suggested that the House of Commons had no role. The House of Commons has a very powerful tool indeed: it can have a vote of no confidence in the Government and the Government are in deep trouble if they lose that. In those circumstances, we used to have a general election straightaway. Unfortunately that has been slightly unwound by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. Normally, the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition will have access to Privy Council briefings with the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence, so he or she should be much better briefed than ordinary Members of the House.

The Bill would not have the effect that the noble Baroness desires. I do not believe that it will have any utility. When the Commons voted to go to war in 2003, it was far too late in the process of transition to war. I was there. Our troops were just about to cross the start line and engage the enemy. We were certainly vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack by Iraqi forces, if they had had the capability. We were just about to engage them and legally they could have launched a pre-emptive attack on us and we would have sustained significant casualties. I know that the issue of casualties is very important to the noble Baroness and I can quite understand that. Very often we have our own forces in harm’s way long before the Commons makes a decision. I will not go any further along what I will call the Chilcot route because we will have a debate next week on that, but if in 2003 the Commons had voted no, it would have seriously damaged the relationship between the UK and the United States and, indirectly, seriously damaged NATO, although I accept that it was not a NATO operation.

From where I was, sat in Kuwait, the vote in the House of Commons was irrelevant. We were going to cross the start line. We were told that it was irrelevant and I suspect that our commanders knew perfectly well the arithmetic in the House of Commons. The Government of the day were confident that they would get a yes vote because of the support from Her Majesty’s Opposition. It was too late, but it would have been compliant with the noble Baroness’s Bill.

During Op Telic 1, there were some cases of servicepeople being unwilling to deploy to the operational theatre and claiming spurious legal reasons for doing so. In an operation such as Telic 1—a large-scale mission—it is not surprising that there are a few of those cases. It is disappointing, but there are disciplinary methods for dealing with it. But if a serviceperson refuses to put themselves in harm’s way because the House of Commons has not yet authorised it, we could be creating a legal problem that we never had before. That is yet another problem with the noble Baroness’s Bill.

I said that the Bill is not properly drafted to have the effect that the noble Baroness wants. Seriously, it excludes operations by Special Forces and Her Majesty’s Armed Forces supporting Special Forces. The noble Lord, Lord West, will know perfectly well that nuclear submarines are also involved in deploying Special Forces—so you can insert Special Forces using very significant military power. I am not well briefed on Special Forces operations, for obvious reasons, but I can safely surmise. It seems to me that successful Special Forces operations have strategic effect but also very often the opponent is completely unaware that the operation has taken place. However, if our Special Forces were detected, that could have a significant effect. You could get yourself in an awful lot of hot water and quite easily be the genesis of a conflict. In other words, use of our Special Forces could get us in a lot of trouble if it went wrong. Again, there is no authority by the House of Commons to deploy forces, including nuclear submarines with Special Forces, designed to have strategic effect—not just a little exercise.

If Parliament wanted to put controls on operations, especially medium and large-scale operations, it would have to do so much earlier in the process. For instance, controls would have to be put on outloading the ammunition from the base depot because that is a major indicator to one’s opponent. You want to put controls on armoured vehicles subject to the CFE treaty—again, a major combat indicator. As soon as you start making those sorts of movement, you are vulnerable to pre-emptive attack and could take casualties as a result. I would not advocate putting those controls on the Government because I firmly believe in trusting the Government of the day. When I deployed to Iraq, I believed that the Prime Minister of the day was doing the best job that he could in the interests of the nation.

In conclusion, I fully appreciate the issue that the noble Baroness seeks to address, but I just do not believe that the Bill will have the positive effect that she intends. At the same time, it will create several serious new problems. It is not the right solution. I look forward to further discussions on these matters when we debate the Chilcot report.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill brought forward in the name of my noble friend Lady Falkner. It comes at a very appropriate time. Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I plan to support the Bill. I note that he said that, had things not been so busy in the last seven to 10 days, he would have tabled a fatal Motion. So for those of us who were rather keen that the UK should vote to remain in the European Union—I assume it was the referendum that deflected the noble Earl—there is at least, if not any sunlit upland, a little glimmer of light coming from the fact that no fatal Motion was tabled. For that we can be grateful.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, if I had tabled a fatal Motion, a difficulty would have been that it might well have had to be debated in prime time. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, would have been thrilled to bits by that. She would probably not have been that worried about the end result and we would have had a much bigger debate—so I was actually being a bit cruel by not tabling a fatal Motion.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

My Lords, this is actually a very serious Bill. Decisions to go to war and engage in military conflict always necessitate deep reflection, expert intelligence and other appropriate military advice. They must be taken responsibly and with due regard to not just the short-term military intervention but the medium and long-term consequences. We should never engage in military conflict without thinking through what the exit strategy might be. Leaving failed states behind is clearly not acceptable or morally right.

Of course, the decision to go to war is a prerogative power—but, as we have already heard, a convention has emerged in terms of consulting Parliament. Other states with written constitutions have rather more clarity in this regard. Finland, Spain, Ireland and Italy all require parliamentary votes before going into military conflict. Unless there is a direct attack on Germany, it has an even higher threshold of a two-thirds vote in Parliament before engaging in military conflict. Clearly, we do not have a codified constitution. It may be appropriate to have such a thing, but that is not something for a Private Member’s Bill. But surely clarity would be helpful.

I share some of the concerns outlined by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. Even Members of Parliament who are well informed and have been led to understand some of the military implications of a decision will not be the same as a Cabinet sitting round the table, fully briefed with all the relevant military intelligence. But the Bill of my noble friend Lady Falkner addresses some of these issues as it explicitly refers to emergency and security conditions. So if we are talking about issues that necessitate significant amounts of military intelligence that cannot be divulged to 650 Members of the House of Commons, that is presumably an area where the Prime Minister would be able to say that action would be taken under the existing prerogative.

Arguably, this leaves the Prime Minister with slightly more wiggle room than we as Liberal Democrats would want, because our party policy is very clearly that a decision should be taken by the House of Commons before going into military conflict, but I think that the balance is about right with the inclusion of the emergency condition and the security condition.

One key thing is that there should be clarity of thinking ahead of military decisions, but that does not always seem to have been the case. In the last few days, we have heard that the decision to intervene militarily in Iraq was taken without an adequate plan being in place and without adequate reference to intelligence, even if at the time it was thought to be there. Somebody has to take responsibility for decisions to go into military conflict. That could be left to the royal prerogative but, since we have a representative democracy and we have parliamentarians to take decisions for—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Framlingham]

I do not know as much about this subject as the noble Baroness; I am just concerned that in warfare the element of surprise is often very important. That comes into the kind of things that we are talking about.

[Earl Attlee]

And I am just as naughty because I oppose the convention as well.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that his problem is one for the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to deal with—not me. But I completely accept the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, which were voiced by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, as well. But, ultimately, either we trust MPs to do a job and have access to the information or we do not.

The concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan—I am grateful to him; I know that he was a Minister for the Armed Forces and is therefore very knowledgeable and has huge experience in these matters—was that if the wrong decision was taken, parliamentary approval would not negate that. That is right; I completely agree with him. But the point that I am making is that although Parliament might not negate that, the country would not need to listen, as it did three days ago, to someone saying, “I take complete responsibility, but that is it, and I would not have changed anything that I did”. If the House of Commons was consulted, and if the country moved away from that decision, the country would have the ability to kick those people out at the next general election. In that sense, there is a direct line of accountability—the golden thread.

I am so grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for having spoken—I count her as a friend, as well as somebody for whose legal prowess I have huge admiration. She supports the Lords Constitution Committee but she does not like the current convention of Parliament being consulted. But the Lords Constitution Committee supports the status quo ante. It wants Parliament to be consulted along the current method; it just does not want codification in the Bill. But of course these are details that we can move to in Committee, should that come to pass. I do not intend to detain the House very much longer.

I express huge gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the Labour Party for their support. In public life, a lot of decisions are not straightforward and all of us, on all sides, sometimes take the wrong decisions. Sometimes we were culpable, sometimes the information was not accurate, and sometimes the imperative to move quickly took us to that potentially wrong decision. But what is really important, and what the country needs to hear from us now, is that we are learning from decisions that we have taken in the past. I think that the position of the Labour Party, which is so very welcome, is that there is an indication that things went wrong and that it has learned, as we all have. One of the things Mr Cameron said in the Chilcot debate was that he took responsibility for his own vote. I thought that was important.

The most important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, was that the reason the Labour Party supports this small, modest measure is that it recognises that this underpins the need for the Government to show that they draw their powers from the people. That is terribly important.

The Minister has been incredibly gracious and kind to me in having engaged in some discussion. We did not agree. We come from different positions. I come from a party that is internationalist in its outlook, trusts the people to the nth degree and takes its responsibilities as parliamentarians extremely seriously—which is not to suggest that other parties do not. Indeed, I mentioned Edmund Burke, and the Minister will know how important he was for Conservative Governments in historical times. The Minister raised some exceptions that are entirely valid, and I look forward to engaging with him privately, as he has invited me to come to talk to him, and as we move into Committee. But the point I do not understand is how this Bill ties the Government’s hands. The contrary criticism I am getting from NGOs—38 Degrees was mentioned, along with others—is that the Bill is too flexible and does not tie the Government’s hands enough. There are people who want to hold the Government’s feet to the fire and think that this Bill is too grown-up, too considered and too reflective to do that.

I do not wish to weary the House any more. We hope to move on. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Armed Forces Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, this Bill is on a much smaller scale than the one introduced five years ago, which dealt with the whole concept of the covenant and included very complicated and very necessary commitments. I am very pleased that even this week the Minister has pursued those issues by engaging with the House and making us aware of developments in that area. Frequently, pieces of legislation are rushed through and their implementation sometimes leaves much to be desired. So while the provisions in this Bill are not on the same scale as those of the previous Act, nevertheless they are significant.

As I understand it—perhaps the Minister can clarify this—as well as provision every five years in an Act of Parliament, the actual Armed Forces also need to be renewed on a regular basis. That seems rather a peculiarity because it is very difficult to envisage circumstances where we would not need them. I do not know whether a more permanent mechanism is required in a future Bill so that that provision does not have to be renewed.

I place on record my thanks to the Minister for the manner in which he engaged with noble Lords, dealt with our concerns and gave us an opportunity to participate fully and follow up our queries, some of which may have been better informed than others. Nevertheless, I am happy to see the Bill pass.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I was not going to intervene, but the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said something that worried me slightly. I think that annual renewal by order of the Armed Forces Act is an absolutely essential control on the operation of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence.

Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Armed Forces Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I worked out before this evening that Amendments 1 and 2 were, in fact, Amendment 3 in Grand Committee on 1 March. Mindful of the guidance in the Companion, that arguments fully developed in Committee should not be repeated on Report, I took the trouble to read the report of the Grand Committee. At the time, I indicated that I was to some extent attracted to some of the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. I said:

“I am putting a burden on the Government, today and perhaps in subsequent meetings and in writing, to argue the case for why we should not move in the general direction of these amendments and make the whole process for the defendant more analogous to that of a civil court”.—[Official Report, 1/3/16; col. GC 48.]

I still cleave to that general direction. The Minister then made a spirited defence, stretching from col. 50 to col. 54, which I read and also found persuasive in the sense that making small changes is likely to have unforeseen consequences which might be difficult. I have heard nothing today to change my general direction of travel. The Government should consider examining in the Ministry of Defence, perhaps in concert with the Ministry of Justice, whether the decision-making process where the citizen is on trial—the member of the Armed Forces becomes a citizen at this point—should not be closer to the civil system.

Moving in that direction would create some significant change and there may well be some significant consequences. I am not convinced that today’s amendments would not have unforeseen deleterious effects. Accordingly, these Benches will not be able to support them. We ask the Government to think seriously about the arguments that have been brought forward in Committee and on Report, and to look at the extent to which there should be some movement towards the citizen when on trial having much closer rights and a similar process to the civilian courts.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am still a commissioned officer in the reserves, although I am not training. This is my 60th year of life, so I will not be doing it for much longer. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, suggested that both the general public and those in the Armed Forces do not have confidence in the system of discipline in the Armed Forces. My experience is different. I have never had members of the Armed Forces come to me and say that they lack confidence in the system of military discipline. I have to admit that it is a robust system.

I have also never heard a member of the public—someone who is not in the Armed Forces—say that there is something seriously wrong with the system of military discipline, apart from when one reads articles in the Daily Mail, some of which are not very well researched.

One of the problems with what the noble Lord suggests is that we do not understand the dynamics of how the court martial panel works. In Committee, I suggested to the Minister that we need to do research, along the lines proposed by the Opposition Front Bench, to understand what the effect would be. We need to war game it before we start altering the system. I suggested to my noble friend that he keeps this under review and makes sure that we are going in the right direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I have been listening with great interest to this debate and been persuaded by what has been said on all sides of the Chamber, but one thing occurred to me when we were debating Amendment 2. The Minister said he was not really aware of a lack of confidence in the system but I have to say that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is right. It is not just in the Daily Mail. Whenever you read about Deepcut or any of these scandals, the people whose families are affected do not have total confidence in the system. They think there are cover-ups. Only on the radio on the way here, I heard the families of people who were at Hillsborough saying they were let down and a chief constable has been sacked because there was a cover-up. It really is not good enough to say that the public have trust and the Minister is not aware of mistrust. I can assure noble Lords that there is mistrust among the general public, who feel that organisations that inspect themselves when there is a problem are deeply suspicious. I am not saying that the military does not often do things very well—or the police or any other organisation—but the general public are concerned about this issue.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, just mentioned Deepcut. I urge anyone who has the slightest worry about Deepcut to read the Blake report, which explains what happened.

I agree with the general thrust of these amendments, particularly the sensible approach from the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. In Committee, the Minister was sympathetic to our concerns but he has rather too much faith in the commanding officer. Yes, commanding officers are extremely experienced and they are specially trained to be commanding officers. There is a course for commanding officers-designate. My experience is that with every level you go up in terms of promotion, you get more information about what your responsibilities are and what the difficulties are.

Nevertheless, the power of the commanding officer can be delegated to more junior officers, so quite often—in terms of discipline, for instance—minor offences can be dealt with by a major or a lieutenant-commander. These cases are exceptionally difficult for the commanding officer to investigate. Clearly he will not be able to investigate them personally. He may even be out of the country when the allegation arises. The commanding officer or the acting or delegated commanding officer will have to appoint someone else in the unit to carry out the investigation, and that person will not be any better trained. Furthermore, the fact that someone else in the unit may have to be appointed to carry out the investigation may deter someone from making an allegation in the first place.

Amendment 5 covers only sexual assault; it does not cover inappropriate contact, by which I mean touching. However, this can also be a problem and it can be a precursor to more serious problems. As I said in Committee, my belief is that the service police should keep records of allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate contact. They would then know whether a person had made this type of complaint before and could ask whether they could be a serial complainant, and they would also have records of someone who had had a similar allegation made against them before and they might even know the MO, so they would understand whether the allegation was likely to be true or malicious. If the service police keep records, investigations can be facilitated, and it is better to achieve this through a policy change rather than through the amendment, which, as I said, has the defect of not covering inappropriate contact.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, referred to the culture in the Armed Forces as a reason for publishing the statistics. She will be aware that the Armed Forces carry out continuous attitude surveys that measure changes. She made the important point, from her own background and experience, about measuring changes. In Committee, the Minister explained what information is already released and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, told us how difficult it is to access it. However, my concern is that the media—particularly the print media—will use these statistics to produce an easy story. It is easy to quote a horrendous number of incidents without comparing them with the number of such incidents in civil society.

In conclusion, I feel very strongly about the need for record-keeping by service police to facilitate investigations. These are very difficult matters for officers and warrant officers in a unit to investigate. Frankly, I do not think they relish it; they would rather hand it over to the service police, who have the relevant experience.

I hope the Minister can say something helpful to us, but I am also happy to join noble Lords later in keeping up the pressure on my noble friend the Minister, because I know that he enjoys getting pressure from me.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

Schedule 2 to the Armed Forces Act 2006 lists the offences that a commanding officer is required to report to the service police for investigation. There is a long list of offences, including, in paragraph 12(at), any offence under Part 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003,

“except one under section 3, 66, 67 or 71”.

Section 3 is a very important part of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. It relates to sexual assault, which of course can vary from a very serious sexual assault to the sort of touching that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, referred to a moment ago. That provision means that the commanding officer is not required to pass on for investigation to the service police a complaint of sexual assault. I imagine that he most certainly would pass on an allegation of serious sexual assault, but there is a great loophole there because commanding officers differ. Some may have one view on what a sexual assault is and another may have a completely different view, in effect telling the complainant to go away and not be silly. So there is a problem there. At the moment it is an unexploded bomb within the system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jolly]

I support the amendments. As the noble Baroness has just said, what is there not to like?

Children joining the services at 16 and 17 come in all shapes and sizes: from those embarking on technical or engineering careers to those joining the infantry and, possibly, the Royal Marines. Their wish is to be physically rather than mentally active, and they are required. The first group, at the start of an apprenticeship, will continue their education and will require a high standard of literacy and numeracy. The second group will not require such high standards and will not be comfortable with reading formal documents. There needs to be awareness that currently, these recruits do not study the same GCSEs as the technical recruits, but another curriculum. There is an issue here, because young men and women who enlist under the age of 18 can leave the Army at any stage up to 18, but if they have dipped out of the standard curriculum and are not studying a GCSE curriculum, their life chances will be affected. We need to be aware of that.

If the Minister cannot answer this question perhaps he will write to me. When was the readability of the documents the amendment refers to last examined? If the required reading age is greater than 10, as is being suggested—bearing in mind that the average Sun reader has a reading age of between eight and 10, so it is nothing unusual—perhaps these documents should be revised.

[Earl Attlee]

I support the recruitment of people under the age of 18 into the Armed Forces. It provides a fabulous opportunity for them.

I have no problem with Amendment 7 but I do not expect my noble friend to accept it. It would be a seriously good news report. I would certainly like to write the section on evaluating the effects on young service people. I would be able to write lovely case studies about youngsters coming from disadvantaged circumstances with poor employment prospects. These people will obviously be young, fit, able to read and write, intelligent and have potential. They can join the Armed Forces and have a fabulous career, whereas for their contemporaries in certain areas of the country the prospects are not very good.

The education and training they will receive will, generally speaking, be far better than they get elsewhere. They may leave the Armed Forces fairly soon but, by that point, if they are not in a highly skilled trade, they will probably have a vocational driving licence. As to the financial effects, it is a win-win situation. These youngsters will have an income their contemporaries will not have, so that is a win for them. They will be on the pathway to a decent career. When they become 18, they will be fully trained members of the Armed Forces and deployable.

To be charitable, Amendment 8 is unnecessary. It suggests that a young person recruited into the Armed Forces is practically illiterate. The reality, as my noble friend will tell us, is that a guardian’s consent is needed. More importantly, a young person who is illiterate to the extent that they cannot read and understand the recruitment papers would not be able to pass the service entrance tests. Their potential would be so poor that they would be of no use to the Armed Forces and would not be able to get in on that route. Therefore Amendment 8, to be charitable, is unnecessary.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I have a certain sympathy for the amendment of my noble friend Lord Judd but I feel that allowing people to enter the services at 16 is a good thing. I tried to join when I was 14, which was slightly too young in my mother’s and the Navy’s opinion, but I joined at 17. As my noble friend said, a number of the people who join the services at that age come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and what the military does to those people is quite remarkable. If we were able to show that, everyone would see it, but there is no need to do so. It is right that we still take people into the services at 16. They gain a great deal and it is a useful and good thing for our society, in the same way as the cadet forces add a great deal to our society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, of course I thank the Minister for his very full reply. I listened to his admonishments about the things that he believes I have got wrong. I am afraid that I do not accept those admonishments and suggest that a report would give him the opportunity to set out in more detail for all to see the evidence behind what he keeps emphasising is the commitment to education. In saying that, I will again put on record how much I admire the dedication and work of many of those doing what is required of them. But even at this stage of the debate, and within all the constraints of practice, I wish to comment on the important points which the Minister has made before I close.

Functional skills provided by the Army are not the equivalent of GCSE grades D to G, as the Wolf Review of Vocational Education made clear. GCSE courses are longer and much more involved than functional skills courses, despite their notionally comparable educational level. They are an interim qualification only, designed to lead to GCSEs. In a House of Commons debate on 25 November 2013, it emerged that no more than 20 soldiers across the entire Army of all ages had gained a GCSE in English or maths in each of the past five years. I emphasise: 20 soldiers of all ages.

These are just some of the facts which do not altogether substantiate the fulsome position that the Minister likes to take. I hope that he will forgive my drawing this to his attention. A report would give him an opportunity to refute in detail, with evidence, the criticisms and to establish his case.

There is much I could say about complying with all relevant children’s legislation. However, I will just point out that the Armed Forces are exempt from most relevant legislation. As an employer, the forces, for example, are not required to ensure that all staff who work in direct contact with children have criminal record checks, despite living alongside recruits in training camps. No sixth form, public school or state school would be allowed to do that.

The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, was a little concerned by what I said about the recruitment process. I wish that the reality of the experience bore out what he claimed. There is no obligation on recruiters to meet parents or guardians at any stage in the process. Minors can be enlisted without their parent or guardian having attended any meeting with Army staff or any selection event. A signed consent form is required at the very end of the process but the Armed Forces have no way of verifying that the signatures are genuine. Neither parent nor guardian—

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am not intimately familiar with the recruiting process for minors but my recollection is that the Minister covered precisely the points that the noble Lord is raising.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, my point is that the Minister supported his particular concern by stressing that it was impossible to think that anyone coming into the Army was so illiterate that they could not read the material. The facts and figures produced by the Army itself do not altogether substantiate this. That is why, again, it is so important that we have this report regularly, which would enable us to see how fully—and, we hope, how well or how much better—this provision is being made. I really cannot see why the armed services would resist this.

I just say, in response to my noble friend Lord West, that I joined the cadet force at 14 and thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I remember getting credits on some of my courses for doing things relatively well because I was enjoying them. But my point is not about all that. The point is about the vulnerability of some of the children who are coming in and our need to take double care that we are looking fully at what they are letting themselves in for—because they are letting themselves in for things. For example, the majority of these young recruits coming into these schemes do not have the ability to provide the technical services that are becoming an important characteristic of the modern Army. They therefore, inevitably, predominantly end up in infantry regiments, which, as we saw in Afghanistan, have seven times the death rate of the rest of the Army. These youngsters are taking big decisions with huge implications. I do not want to discourage them—I take much pride and excitement in reading about VCs to youngsters in the 1914-18 war and I take great pride in hearing about the other examples that the Minister keeps, rightly, citing, such as the youngster who ended up with the sword of honour. On all this I agree, but there are lots who do not.

Of the youngsters on these courses, 36% drop out. What do we do to follow up on that? The British Legion has done research that demonstrates that the unemployment rates and the difficulties faced by these youngsters are greater than those of their peers in the same age group. In discharging our responsibilities we must face these facts and, to be able to take these stats seriously, we need to have systematic reports and information available. I just cannot see why the Armed Forces are not prepared to do this. I hope that the Minister, whom I have come to respect over the years, will listen to the plea by my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe. In the hope that he will, I withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I do not have any strong views on the merits of Amendments 9 and 10. However, I am extremely concerned about how long we have been engaged in very difficult operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. We were engaged in operations there for year after year; thankfully, that level of engagement has ceased. Many service people were doing multiple six-month operational tours in their career and we simply do not know what the long-term effect of that will be.

If mental illness arises in a veteran, it will be extremely difficult to be certain as to what caused it. Amendment 9 refers to it being “caused by” military service, but I am sure that in many cases the clinicians will not know what caused it, even though they will be sure that the patient is mentally ill. My great fear is that, because of the amount of operational tours that we have undertaken—with people undertaking multiple tours, as I said—we could have a much worse problem in future years than we thought we were going to have. So, looking longer term, we need to be careful about carrying out military operations that last a very long time.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, both these amendments seek to address provision for the care and support of members of the Armed Forces who suffer from mental health conditions caused by service. The health of our Armed Forces community is hugely important to us all and I welcome the opportunity to set out the Government’s position again.

Turning first to Amendment 9, as I said in Committee, the Armed Forces compensation scheme—AFCS—already makes awards for injuries and disorders predominantly caused by service, including mental health conditions. The scheme is tariff-based and aims to make full and final awards as early as possible, so that individuals can have financial security and focus on getting on with life and living. Claims can be made while in service or when the individual has left. In cases where a disorder is not in steady state, prognosis is uncertain or treatment is ongoing or not yet begun, legislation allows an interim award to be paid at the most likely level. This award is then reviewed and usually finalised within 24 months of notification. Where, exceptionally, matters remain uncertain at review, the interim award may continue for a maximum of 48 months. If the disorder has improved and a lower tariff now applies, no recovery of benefit takes place, while if a higher tariff award now applies, the difference between the interim award and the final award is paid.

The AFCS tariff has nine tables of categories of injury relevant to military service—and they include mental health disorders. While the scheme has time limits for claiming, there is also a provision for delayed-onset conditions, including mental health diagnoses. The Ministry of Defence recognises that, owing to stigma and perceived impact on career, people may delay seeking help. The practical effect of this is that if a person who has left the Armed Forces some time ago is diagnosed with a mental health problem as a result of his or her service and makes a claim under the AFCS, a compensation award will be paid as soon as the claim is accepted. As a result of the recommendations made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, in his review of the AFCS, the Ministry of Defence increased the maximum lump sum award for mental illness from £48,875 to £140,000. This was to better reflect the impact of the most serious mental health conditions.

Broadly, the same mental health disorders are found in military personnel and veterans as in the general community—an exception being a lower rate of the most severe and enduring conditions such as schizophrenia.

Evidence-based effective interventions are now available for the common disorders, including PTSD. The treatments apply to both civilian and military contexts, with a high expectation of improved function, including return to work—especially if people are seen early.

In addition to the AFCS lump sum, the most serious conditions with likely limitations on civilian employability receive a tax-free guaranteed income payment—GIP. While in service, regardless of medical employability grading or being on sick leave, personnel retain their military salary. The GIP is paid for life and comes into effect on discharge from the services or from the date on which the claim is accepted. A lump sum of £140,000 attracts a GIP based on 75% of military salary, with enhancements for service length, age, rank and lost promotions.

Also as a result of the recommendations of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, we established the Independent Medical Expert Group—the IMEG. The group—a non-departmental public body—includes senior consultants and academics and UK authorities on specialities relevant to military life, including mental health. It advises Ministers on the scientific and medical aspects of the scheme.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, also identified the need for further investigation into mental health. The IMEG therefore conducted a review that involved literature search and discussions with civilian and military experts and veterans’ organisations. The findings were published in its second report on 17 May 2013. The conclusions and recommendations on diagnosis, causation, assessment of disorder severity and the use of interim awards were accepted by Ministers and subsequently incorporated into the scheme.

The House will be interested to know that this year sees a further planned review of the AFCS, which began recently. The review is currently in the stakeholder engagement phase and has been approaching charities, claimants and other government departments. This quinquennial review will consider the scheme’s coverage and levels of awards, in particular for those most seriously injured, including those with mental health conditions. It is expected to report at the end of 2016.

The second amendment in this group would create a specific obligation on the Government to have particular regard, in their annual report on the covenant, to parity of esteem between mental and physical healthcare. The Government are absolutely committed to meeting the healthcare needs of the Armed Forces community. The Secretary of State has a statutory requirement to include in his annual Armed Forces covenant report to Parliament the effects of membership, or former membership, of the Armed Forces on service people in the field of healthcare under the covenant.

The healthcare we provide to our service personnel, both at home and deployed on operations, is truly world class. Last year, the principles of the covenant were enshrined in the NHS constitution for England. This gives a commitment to ensure that, as well as those serving in the Armed Forces, reservists, their families and veterans are not disadvantaged in accessing NHS health services in the area in which they reside.

Since 1953, priority access to NHS specialist services in Great Britain has been provided for service-attributable disorders, with no-fault compensation awards. In 2009, this was extended to include treatment for any disorder where a clinician recognises a causal link to service. Priority is decided by the clinician in charge, subject only to clinical need.

I should also mention further work on mental health. For mental health disorders, stigma and perceived discrimination in employment can act as barriers to access and engagement with care. This is not unique to the Armed Forces but common among men. In 2004, led by the Health and Social Care Advisory Service, the MoD, UK health departments, NHS and Combat Stress explored features of an effective veterans’ mental health service, piloting various service models in locations across the UK.

The evidence showed that while some veterans were not comfortable with clinicians who had no military experience, others were equally anxious to see only civilian health professionals. What seem to work best are multifaceted services, including healthcare, social support, benefits advice et cetera, delivered in an environment of cultural sensitivity and empathy. The pilots also confirmed that best-practice interventions work, with high rates of improved function and a return to a full life with contribution to family, community and work.

As a reflection of these findings, and of Dr Andrew Murrison’s Fighting Fit report, since 2010, a network of veterans’ mental health services has been established in England and Wales with special arrangements for veterans also established in Scotland. The Armed Forces covenant gives a commitment that veterans should be able to access mental health professionals who have an understanding of Armed Forces culture, and NHS England is currently completing an audit of veterans’ mental health services.

In service, there has also been increased focus on good mental health and well-being, with emphasis on prevention and protection through a chain of command lead. Mental health awareness is part of a through-life training strategy starting at basic training, with self-awareness and with annual refresher courses. There are then specific courses for those with leadership responsibilities. The courses cover: raising stress management; reduction of stigma; building resilience; early detection of problems in self and others; and specific pre-deployment, deployed and decompression measures. Trauma incident management teams and mental health nurses are now considered essential parts of a deployment package, and mental health first aid training to service personnel is being delivered by SSAFA in collaboration with Combat Stress, Mental Health First Aid England and the Royal British Legion.

I should add that there is no evidence of an epidemic of mental problems in military personnel—rather, levels of the common mental health problems in regulars and reservists are broadly similar to those of the matched general population, while levels of PTSD in some groups, and in relation to combat, are slightly but not markedly increased. Where service personnel become ill, help is available in primary care with, as required, referral and outpatient support from the 16 departments of community mental health across the UK. When, rarely, in-patient care is necessary, it is provided in eight dedicated psychiatric units, again located around the country.

I therefore assure noble Lords that the Government are committed to meeting the health needs of the service community. We will continue to report on the provision of healthcare in the Armed Forces Covenant Annual Report, and our work to address mental health needs will be an integral part of that report.

The principles of the covenant are to ensure that the Armed Forces community is treated fairly in comparison to the civilian population. Parity of esteem is there to ensure that all health services treat mental health with the same importance as physical health, and it applies to everyone accessing NHS services, not just the Armed Forces community. For this reason, I remain firm in the belief that it does not need to be legislated for under the covenant.

I shall write to the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, on any of her specific questions that I have not addressed. However, given our clear commitment to support those who suffer from mental health conditions, and the tangible steps that we are taking, I hope that the noble Lord will agree to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

Amendments 11 and 12 were Amendments 15 and 16 in Committee. I have reread the debate and do not note anything, other than Kenya, that has been added to them tonight. They go to the essence of the scope of military law. We were not persuaded to support them in Committee and we will not do so now.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am relaxed about these amendments but I expect that my noble friend the Minister will have something to say about them. Just to tease the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, slightly—

[Noble Lords]

We are not in Committee.

[Earl Attlee]

The Minister has not spoken yet. To tease the noble Lord slightly, with the benefit of hindsight, would he advise the junior marines who were defendants in the Blackman case to take their case to the Old Bailey? I do not think they would have got on very well.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to restate the Government’s position on the further changes to the service justice system that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, proposes. His intention with Amendment 11 is to extend the jurisdiction of civilian criminal courts in England and Wales by giving them jurisdiction to try members of the Armed Forces and civilians subject to service discipline for overseas acts that, were they committed here, would constitute sexual offences under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, because I confess I am not clear what advantage the amendments would confer on the system as a whole. Noble Lords may be aware that service courts are already able to exercise jurisdiction in respect of acts committed overseas. Section 42 of the Armed Forces Act 2006 provides that a member of the Armed Forces is guilty of an offence under service law if they commit an act outside the UK that would constitute an offence under the law of England and Wales were it done here. If it is necessary to have a further conversation with the noble Lord after Report to clarify any misunderstanding that I have, I will be happy to do that.

Amendment 12 would give members of the Armed Forces accused of committing certain crimes overseas the right to elect to be tried by a civilian criminal court in the UK instead of a court martial. The crimes in question are those that the civilian criminal courts may try even if the event in question took place overseas. Those offences include murder, and would also include sexual offences if Amendment 11 were accepted as well. I note that Amendment 12 does not appear to propose that a member of the Armed Forces should have a right to elect civilian criminal trial in a case concerning conduct in the UK, where both the civilian courts and a court martial would have jurisdiction to try the case. I confess it is not immediately apparent to me why such cases should be treated differently.

Taken together, the effect of Amendments 11 and 12 would appear to be that while a service person who committed a sexual offence overseas could choose to be tried at a Crown Court rather than a court martial, a service person who committed the same offence in the UK would have no such choice. It is not clear why the amendment makes provision for electing civilian court trial only for conduct outside the UK, not in the UK.

The noble Lord may again not be too surprised to hear that we do not support these amendments. I said in Grand Committee in response to two very similar amendments tabled by the noble Lord that making the changes proposed would appear to imply that there may be reason to doubt the ability of the court martial to deal with sexual offences. I would make the same point about Amendments 11 and 12. Yet, as I said in Grand Committee, the service justice system has been scrutinised by the UK courts and by Strasbourg and it is now well recognised that the court martial system in the UK ensures a trial that is fair and compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, both for investigations and prosecutions in respect of acts in the UK and for investigations and prosecutions in respect of overseas acts where the civilian police may not have jurisdiction. The Government believe that the service justice system, including the service police, the Service Prosecuting Authority and service courts, is capable of dealing with the most serious of offences and should be able to continue to do so.

The amendments would significantly undermine existing arrangements designed to ensure that cases are dealt with in the most appropriate court jurisdiction. In the case of offences which both the civilian criminal courts and service courts have jurisdiction to try, it is recognised that it is necessary to consider in each case whether the offence is more appropriately tried in the civilian criminal courts or in a service court. This applies not only to those offences committed overseas in respect of which the civilian criminal courts have jurisdiction, but also to offences committed in the United Kingdom which both the civilian criminal courts and service courts have jurisdiction to try. However, a decision on appropriate jurisdiction is rightly a matter for service and civilian prosecutors rather than the accused person.

There is a protocol between service and civilian prosecutors which recognises that some cases are more appropriately dealt with in the service system and others are more appropriately dealt with in the civilian system, particularly those with civilian victims. The principles of this protocol have the approval of the Attorney-General for England and Wales, and the Ministry of Justice. The protocol recognises that any criminal offence can be dealt with by the service authorities. The main factor in decisions on whether an offence is more appropriately dealt with in the civilian criminal justice system or the service justice system is whether the offence has any civilian context, especially a civilian victim. The protocol therefore provides for cases with a civilian context to be dealt with by the civilian criminal justice system. Where a case has a service context, it is important that the service justice system, which is specifically constructed to deal with that unique service dimension, is able to deal with the case.

Creating a right to elect of the kind contained in this amendment would override the existing protocol and could seriously undermine the service justice system. Many offences which involve conduct outside the UK will have a service context such that both service and civilian prosecutors would consider that they would be more appropriately dealt with in the service system. However, the proposed right of election could mean that a person accused of such an offence could make an election that led to their case being dealt with instead by the civilian criminal courts. We do not think this would be right. This is significant because the court martial is part of an overall system of justice and discipline, and the existing statutory provisions in the Armed Forces Act 2006 governing sentencing in the court martial reflect this. They are closely based on the civilian sentencing principles but include in addition, as I mentioned earlier, the “maintenance of discipline” and the “reduction of service offences”, which reflect special aspects related to the service justice system. In my response to Amendment 2, I touched on a number of these special aspects.

Allowing a case with a purely service context to be dealt with in the civilian system on the election of an accused therefore risks undermining the system of justice and discipline in the Armed Forces which the Armed Forces Act 2006 was carefully constructed to underpin. Where the prosecutor’s protocol indicated that a case should be dealt with in the civilian system—for example, a case in which the victim is a civilian—would the accused service person be able to override that and instead elect trial by court martial? We do not think that would be right. Furthermore, a right to choose which court should hear the case would open up the possibility of any co-accused making different elections, resulting in split trials in different systems with obvious implications for the efficient administration of justice.

There is another aspect to this, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, identified in Grand Committee and which it may be helpful for me to repeat here. The amendments are concerned with conduct overseas which is likely to be criminal under the local law as well as under service law. However, the authorities in states visited by our Armed Forces are commonly prepared to allow service courts to exercise jurisdiction rather than assert their right to try a case before their own civilian courts. A good example is Germany, where there is a very active and much-respected criminal justice system, but under the arrangements we have in place the German authorities are prepared to allow our service courts to exercise jurisdiction over cases with a service context.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, in Grand Committee I welcomed a probing amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, which referred to a duty to report on civilian casualties. At that point I raised certain questions. In particular, the noble Lord’s amendment sought working definitions of “civilians” and “combatants” every three months. It almost suggested that there would be rolling definitions.

At that time, the Minister undertook to write to me to explain the Government’s working definitions of “civilians” and “combatants” in the context of wars in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. I am not sure whether the letter got lost in the post—there are rather a lot of Smiths in your Lordships’ House—but I certainly have not received a letter of that sort. Therefore, I should again like to ask the Government to explain how they define “combatant” and “civilian”. It may appear that they are definitions that can be produced from a dictionary, but the point is that some of our partners—particularly the United States—may have a rather looser definition of a combatant than one might expect in ordinary civilian life, and that it might include young men who are adjacent to conflicts but who may be seen as combatants. Therefore, I would very much welcome an explanation of how Her Majesty’s Government understand the term “combatant”, particularly as there appears to be a marked discrepancy in the figures. Eleven of the 12 partner countries have said that they have not caused any civilian deaths. The United States has acknowledged 41 deaths, yet Airwars has said that there have been 1,118 civilian casualties in the war against Daesh. Therefore, there is some disparity there and I wonder whether it is due to a difference in the definitions.

I do not intend to test the patience of the House by testing its will or by detaining your Lordships for very long, but one point to bear in mind is that the Armed Forces Minister in the other place, Penny Mordaunt, committed in defence Questions on 29 February to review any reports of civilian casualties, and she is apparently looking for ways in which this can best be done.

The purpose behind Amendment 13 is again to suggest a type of reporting system. But, given the difficulties with definition, we could tighten the wording slightly and suggest that there should be reports on civilian non-combatant casualties, which is belt-and-braces wording. Clearly, this is not something we are expecting to take to a vote, but we believe that it is very important that the people of the United Kingdom and our coalition partners in the fight against Daesh have certainty on what we believe to be civilian casualties, and that the belief that we have not caused any civilian casualties is actually correct, on an ordinary definition of “civilian”.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, with these issues, it is always difficult to measure casualties. That is not necessarily an argument against the amendment from the noble Baroness. Just to be really helpful to the Minister, of course, there are lawful combatants and there are unlawful combatants. So that is another issue.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, kindly said, I tabled a similar, rather less focused, amendment in Committee on 3 March and we had a useful debate then. I was grateful for my noble friend’s response, and we explored a number of the challenging aspects of this difficult matter. Now we have this more focused and more pointed amendment, redrafted in the light of those discussions and of the subsequent information that has been made available. Unsurprisingly, I am therefore inclined to support it.

In his reply to the debate, my noble friend’s argument for being unwilling to consider the amendment rested, I think, on two major planks: on the one hand, the inflexibility resulting from enshrining this sort of requirement in primary legislation; and, on the other, operational confidentiality. These two arguments were backed by a statement of general good intent on transparency. My noble friend will appreciate that I absolutely accept his sincerity on these matters, but operational confidentiality could become an elastic concept, capable of being interpreted to cover a pretty wide range of situations. When backed only by a statement of intent without any statutory teeth, this elasticity could be increased still further.

My concern about civilian casualties arises from two points. The first is the long-term fabric of the society. If women and children are traumatised by violence, it may take a generation to rebuild a stable society and it must be in this country’s interests to establish and maintain stable societies wherever possible. Secondly, and no less importantly, civilian casualties must be one of the best recruiting sergeants for extremists. If I see my village wrecked and my family and community blown apart, I am unlikely to be sympathetic to the people who have caused my world to be turned upside down.

At the core of my concern are the figures given by the noble Baroness about the discrepancy between what Airwars has said about coalition casualties, excluding the Russian casualties, of which I think there are a great deal more—some 3,000 or more. This leads me to believe that somewhere something must be going wrong. Airwars has got its figures wrong, or the coalition members are looking the other way, or the procedures for identifying and recording civilian casualties are faulty. This country, which has now carried out some 600 air strikes in Iraq and Syria and flown more than 2,000 combat missions against Daesh, should surely have a keen interest in ensuring that the truth is established and publicised. Our international reputation demands no less. This amendment, if accepted, would help in that process.

I conclude by saying that I hope my noble friend will forgive me if I gently chide his department. As a result of the issues raised in that earlier debate in Grand Committee, which I referred to, which are also the raw material of our discussion this evening, I wrote to him raising a series of specific questions. My letter was dated 15 March, and I am afraid that I have yet to receive a reply. Will he be prepared to act as the man from Dyno-Rod? If so, I would be extraordinarily grateful.

--- Later in debate ---

As I have made clear, the MoD has clear processes and procedures to minimise civilian casualties. The principle of openness on this issue is something which we strongly support and which we have demonstrated during our current operations in Iraq and Syria. We have been very open and transparent about the air strikes that we are conducting in Iraq and Syria: reports are posted online two or three times a week. These reports explain where a military operation has taken place and what effect has been achieved in the fight against Daesh. Where information is not disclosed, it is for very good operational reasons. In the light of what I have said on this matter, I hope that the noble Baroness will agree to withdraw her amendment.

[Earl Attlee]

Before the Minister sits down, he said that we have not caused any civilian casualties in Iraq. I take it that he is referring to current operations and not Operation Telic.

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is right. I am referring to Operation Shader.