Armed Forces Bill

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow on from the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding. With over 30 years of voluntary political service behind her, I am quite sure that she is a welcome addition to the House with such experience. I am sure we all agree that her maiden speech was delivered with a nice touch, and I am quite certain she can return to judging elocution and speech competitions with great and totally deserved confidence. Also, her apposite and most supportive comments about our Armed Forces were very welcome and, given my background, I was very pleased to hear them. In all, it was a speech that offered a nice and pleasant foretaste of interventions to come.

Like the noble Baroness, I pay tribute to the men and women of our Armed Forces and their families who support them. Without the families, our servicemen and servicewomen could not do so well the job that they do.

I had the pleasure, if that is the right word, to be involved in a small way in the 2006 and 2011 Armed Forces Bills when they processed through this House. As was referred to by the Minister, it is good to see that this Bill is of significantly less complexity than the other two, especially the 2006 bumper Bill. Indeed, the fact that there are relatively few matters to address on this occasion, and most of them largely uncontentious and of a tidying-up nature, speaks well of the work that was done five and 10 years ago. I am particularly pleased that there is nothing before us which obviously threatens the service ethos or the command chain and the crucial role that they both have in fighting effectiveness—a point that is all too often forgotten by some. I trust that it will stay that way through Committee stage.

Having said that, I do have some comments. I want to follow up on and empathise with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord West, about mesothelioma. I note that the ongoing work on compensation for veterans suffering from this awful sickness was mentioned in the other place with respect to this Bill. Although it is pleasing to note that progress has been made on this, with a recent settlement announced by the Armed Forces Minister, the relatively small group of veterans who remain excluded because they fall the wrong side of the date lines set last year is regrettable. It seems manifestly unfair and runs counter to the tenets of the Armed Forces covenant. Perhaps the Minister will comment on why this should not find space in the Bill.

Secondly, I, too, wish to raise the subject of “lawfare”, as it sometimes known, and I make no apology for repeating what my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig of Radley said in his excellent speech. Absent from this Bill is any mention of lawfare or the increasing legal encirclement of our Armed Forces. For example, the Minister will be aware of the growing concern within the Armed Forces regarding Crown immunity, or lack of it, in warfare situations—a concern fuelled by the large number of cases being investigated of alleged inappropriate behaviour in the field in Iraq or Afghanistan, or accusations of the use of allegedly inappropriate equipment which overlook the precept in war that you have to fight with what you have got. There can be no better warning of where we have got to on this than the fact that some insurance companies are now touting insurance to commanding officers against the possibility of their being involved in litigation at some stage.

I realise that the Minister will say that commanding officers or people in command will be looked after by the MoD, but the point is that there is a perception in the public that military leaders down to junior level could be in the dock arising from actions and decisions within the Geneva Convention that have been taken in the heat of battle. All this is in danger of leading to a worrying risk averseness that will imperil operational effectiveness. Therefore I ask the Minister to say why the subject should not be addressed in this Bill. If it is not going to be addressed in this Bill, how are the Government going to reassure our service men and women on this point?

Finally, I understand that there are some other improvements to the service justice system which have not been included in the Bill—such as, for example, a provision to enable civilian courts to transfer suitable cases involving service personnel to courts martial; and, on courts martial, to address a concern about the ability of a board to find a person guilty in a serious case by a simple majority, by changing that to a qualified majority or one dissenting vote to come more in line with civilian practice.

I suspect that I am not going to agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, will say in Committee, but on those particular subjects I think we probably are in agreement. So I ask the Minister to explain why such improvements have been omitted from the Bill and to assure the House that they will not be left out until the next quinquennial review.