Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Ian Paisley

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

Indeed. Time and again, supposed Government witnesses went against the Government. My hon. Friend raises a good point with the example that he has just provided.

The other thing that came out, which relates to my new clause, was about investigations. Investigations, or the problems that lead to these issues around investigations, were the thread that ran throughout the evidence. In spite of that, what we had at the weekend—this was a really dangerous move on the part of the Ministry of Defence—was tweets promoting this Bill from the MOD and saying that it would stop investigations. It will do nothing of the sort. As a former Defence Minister myself, using the MOD’s website and tweets to politicise things would not have been allowed in my day. What was put out is just not going to happen. Let us look at the evidence that we heard in Committee from a number of witnesses. The first one I will mention, again a Government witness, is Hilary Meredith, solicitor. She was very good and concentrated on the issue around investigations. She said:

“It is the procedure and investigation in the UK that need to be reviewed and overhauled, and not necessarily a time limit placed on…prosecutions.”––[Official Report, Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Public Bill Committee, 6 October 2020; c. 16, Q24.]

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The right hon. Gentleman has a long track record of supporting the armed services here. Is he concerned by the expression of doubt that has been put by members of the Royal British Legion? They have put in writing to all Members of Parliament the fact that they believe that part 2 of this Bill should be improved and that the time limit really gravely concerns them.

[Mr Jones]

I am, and I will come onto part 2 in a minute. The hon. Gentleman has hit on an issue relating to the Government’s approach to this Bill. The Minister is saying that it is standing up for members of the armed forces. It is doing nothing of the sort. In part 2, it is actually taking away rights.

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[Mr Jones]

It would. That and judicial oversight would improve the Bill tremendously. It would then actually do what it is supposed to do, which is stop reinvestigation and stop the worry that these individuals have, but it does not do that; that is the big hole in the Bill.

It is not as though the Minister has not had a chance to look at this. I have raised it with him—I tabled amendments in Committee, which he pushed aside, and we are going to go ahead with what we have now, which will be a flawed Bill. Once it has passed, it will lead to a situation whereby a lot of people think that as a result they have protections when, frankly, it will do nothing of the sort, because it will not stop investigations and reinvestigations. One of the worst things we can do in politics is promise people things and give them the impression that we have done something when actually we have not, because once the penny drops and they see it is not actually the case, they rightly feel very bitter.

As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has just said, there is time to put this in the Bill. If Ministers are not going to do it in this place, they should do it in the other place, because it will improve the situation.

There is another dishonesty with this process. From, again, using the MOD website, which I do not think is appropriate for political reasons, we see there is a promise about Northern Ireland. The Minister is on record as saying that similar legislation will be brought in to cover historical cases in Northern Ireland. Well, I am sorry, but it will not do so if it is like this Bill; if it is like this Bill then, frankly, it will do nothing at all on investigations. If it is a mirror image of this Bill, all those people who think that somehow they are going to get protection will find that they do not, and that is just not fair.

[Ian Paisley]

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree that the officers who served under Operation Banner have been completely jettisoned and abandoned. That is the bottom line, and that is the crying shame of this—and I do not trust anyone in the Northern Ireland Office to bring forward a Bill that will help those ex-servicemen in the years to come.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a clear point: do I feel it right that, frankly, people in their 70s or 80s and even younger are worried about this happening? No, I think that is appalling, frankly, because there is an evidence test: is it in the public interest for those individuals to be now dragged before the courts? No, it is not. Here we have another promise that will not be delivered. I must say he is right in terms of the Northern Ireland Office. I have looked at the matter in detail—I have met all parties in Northern Ireland, including Sinn Féin, along with the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis)—and I think that finding a mechanism is going to be virtually impossible.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. The fact is this will end up in Northern Ireland Operation Banner officers being a trade-off between what the NIO finds politically helpful to buy off bartering with the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin.

[Mr Jones]

I defer to the hon. Gentleman’s knowledge of Northern Ireland politics, but I will say that this will not be solved by the promise that has been made. That again is not the issue.

I turn to new clause 3. It relates to the point that was raised on part 2 and is covered by an amendment tabled by Members on the Labour Front Bench. The issue is the stripping away of rights from veterans. I find it absolutely astonishing that, in this week of remembrance, we have a Government who have introduced a Bill that will actually take rights away from veterans. The longstop of six years will mean that veterans—and families—will not have access to section 33 of the Limitation Act, which allows people to bring cases out of time.

In Committee there was a lot of discussion about how many people would be affected. The Royal British Legion was very clear in its opposition to part 2 because, as Charles Byrne said in response to the Minister:

“I think it is protecting the MOD, rather than the service personnel”––[Official Report, Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Public Bill Committee, 8 October 2020; c. 86, Q163.]

He said that the Royal British Legion thought it did breach the armed forces covenant. I agree, because the covenant states:

“Those who serve in the Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, those who have served in the past, and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public…services”

and so on. I agree with that, but this strips away their rights under section 33, which means that if somebody brings forward a case after the six-year longstop, they cannot have recourse to section 33 of the Limitation Act, because the Bill will take those rights away. Those rights are open to every single Member in the House today, and to prisoners and asylum seekers—anybody who wants to bring a case.

The Minister said that 94% of cases were brought within the time limits anyway. That is irrelevant to me, because 6% clearly are not, and it is those 6% that will then possibly use the Limitation Act.

May I put this on record, as I did in Committee? Bringing forward a section 33 case is by no means easy. It pertains to a very small number of individuals who could not bring their case within the time limit because their circumstances were unique; and they have to go before a court and argue out the reasons. I have done it myself when I worked for a trade union on injury or disease cases that were out of time—although you would not take on such a case in the first instance if you thought you would not get anywhere. However, there are those important cases that you can take, and which do make a difference.

The case that was mentioned time and again in Committee was the Snatch Land Rover decision in 2016. The families took forward the case under the Human Rights Act, which I will come on to in a minute, on the basis that their loved ones had been killed and injured in Iraq because of negligence on behalf of the MOD.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Ian Paisley

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I agree, and we need to get away from the cynical approach of this Government who talk about devolution and about devolving decision making but with no funds attached to that.

[Ian Paisley]

Getting back to the Scotland Bill, I agree with the thrust of what the hon. Gentleman is saying in that we should know what this costs. We have a proposal tonight to devolve all these fiscal powers, but we do not know what the cost will be for the ordinary Scot or indeed for the rest of us. When corporation tax powers were devolved to Northern Ireland, we were shown the bill of fare, and it is going to cost us £250 million a year to do that. What is it going to cost the ordinary Scot if there is devolution of all these fiscal powers?

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, which illustrates why the later amendment seeking to quantify the cost is needed. If we are going to take these decisions in the long-term interests of the Scottish economy and its people, they need to know that. I am a former trade union official and I never went into negotiations without knowing what the costs of the outcome would be. The problem with the Scottish nationalists’ proposals is that they do not know what the ultimate costs will be.

Amendment 58 in the name of the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) proposes that the phrase that the Scottish Parliament is recognised as

“a permanent part of the United Kingdom’s constitution”

replace the current wording in clause 1, which states:

“A Scottish Parliament is recognised as a permanent part of the United Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements.”

We have a problem with that, as I tried to tease out in my interventions on the hon. Gentleman: what is the definition of the United Kingdom’s constitution, because we do not have anything called that? If that amendment passes, there would be a feast day for lawyers in trying to identify what the constitution is. If we had a written constitution, the Scottish Parliament could be a permanent part of it, but we do not have a written constitution and I am at a loss to know how this would be interpreted as things currently stand. The amendment has been tabled so it is in order, but I am not sure of its practicality and uses, and I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman understands how this would be interpreted and whether it will be left to a court to decide how the UK constitution is to be defined.

Support for UK Armed Forces and Veterans

Debate between Lord Beamish and Ian Paisley

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I take that point on board, but the best thing to do would be to focus fundraising efforts on the existing charities. The Royal Navy is rationalising its smaller charities. That is not being done to denigrate their work, because some of them do key specific work, but it is important that there is better co-ordination between them.

[Ian Paisley]

I believe that there are something like 2,000 such charities, many of which are doing an excellent job, and that they are issue-specific and will fade out. There is a strong case to be made for co-ordinating and consolidating their work.

[Mr Jones]

I believe the Confederation of British Service and Ex-service Organisations is working with the Veterans Minister to consider how we can get better co-ordination between those charities, which will be very important, especially when the clientele of some of the smaller charities pass away over the next few years. I am thinking, for example, of the Association of Wrens, which I believe has an end-date by which it will wind itself up and merge with other naval service charities. I put on record again my thanks to the individuals involved in such charities.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley mentioned the covenant, which it is important to consider. The previous Government were quite clear in our Command Paper about where our work on that would go next, and the Green Paper that I produced in 2008 considered ways of embedding in law the covenant and other matters covered in the Command Paper. I am sad that the Government are not following through on that work, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister’s commitment on the deck of the Ark Royal is in sharp contrast with what has happened in practice.

The opportunity provided by the Armed Forces Bill is being missed, because the covenant is not being enshrined in law. Members have mentioned the Royal British Legion, which clearly feels let down. It saddened me that when I tabled an amendment to the Bill in Committee a few weeks ago, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats voted against it. That was a missed opportunity, and we need to revisit the matter.

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[Mr Jones]

I am aware of that, and I know that other local authorities including Wigan have changed their housing policies to do exactly the same thing. The Prime Minister made a clear commitment to enshrining that in law, as the quotation that we have heard this afternoon shows. The Armed Forces Bill does not do that, and if the Government are rethinking ways of doing it, they will certainly have the Opposition’s support and assistance.

[Ian Paisley]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, and I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for it. There is a strong case to be made that it is a national issue. When a soldier comes out of the Army, they should be able to settle in public housing somewhere with their family and expect something in return for the service that they have given this nation. It is a very small ask, and we should insist on it.

[Mr Jones]

I totally agree. The danger with the system outlined in the Bill is that the Secretary of State will produce a report without any independent input. As I said in Committee, I do not question for one minute the Secretary of State’s integrity or his intention to ensure that everything that should be in the report is in it, but a future Secretary of State could decide that certain matters should not be. That is a missed opportunity, and I hope that when the Bill goes to the other place it will be amended to ensure that the covenant is enshrined in law.