Queen’s Speech

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, two years ago I received an email from a complete stranger about veterans. I did some research and found, going back five years and more, that Members of both Houses had been approached on the topic. I and others raised it in Questions and debates, in approaches to four Home Secretaries, and by letters or meetings of delegations. One well-supported letter was sent in January 2019 by Andrew Rosindell MP and co-signed by Sir Lindsay Hoyle. It was supported by a further 18 MPs and a dozen Peers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, and me. With many approaches to Home Office Ministers, what is it about? What responses were given and is it resolved?

Some 300 individuals born in Hong Kong and locally enlisted to serve in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces prior to handover were seeking right of abode in the United Kingdom. Early reaction from the Home Office was dismissive. Locally employed and locally enlisted, they were said to have no rights other than to British national (overseas) status. However, these veterans had been employed and paid by the UK, not the Hong Kong Government, their pay was subject to a UK tax reduction, they had been issued with UK service identity papers, and some had undertaken detachments in this country and jungle warfare training in Brunei. Others had been deployed to meet UK commitments to UNFICYP in 1990-91 to allow UK servicemen there to redeploy in the first Gulf conflict. Their status as veterans seemed indisputable and should be honoured by the Government under the Armed Forces covenant, as mentioned in the gracious Speech.

After that, Ministers’ responses then sounded more helpful:

“We have agreed to undertake a thorough assessment of the request that this group are offered right of abode in the United Kingdom”.


That was the response from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, in January 2016. No decision was reached. By 2018, responses to Questions resorted to stonewalling and indecision. For example, in March 2018, Caroline Nokes MP wrote:

“We have received a number of representations on this matter, all of which are being carefully considered”,


adding that a decision would be made as soon as practicable.

A month later the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, wrote to me in answer to one of my Questions with an identical copy-and-paste Answer. So it went on and, in July 2019, Caroline Nokes said in an Answer:

“This is a complex matter to which we are giving careful consideration”.


In short, these veterans have been left in limbo. Ministerial responses could be diagnosed as repetitive indecision syndrome.

I have now had sight of a more recent letter, dated 13 September 2019, to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, signed by Seema Kennedy, then a Home Office Minister. She confirmed that members of the Hong Kong Military Service Corps were

“part of the UK armed forces in Hong Kong … therefore MoD considers them veterans.”

Ms Kennedy went on to say that

“from a moral perspective further consideration is required.”

She said that the Home Office is

“fully engaged with this issue.”

That was signed off four months ago. The original 300 who started this request five years ago have reduced, through emigration to Canada, Australia and elsewhere and through deaths, to fewer than 100 individuals, and by no means is it likely that all would decide to leave Hong Kong.

I should mention that I have recently accepted the kind offer to be a patron of the Hong Kong Military Service Corps and HKOR Benevolent Association, the members of which are affected. I recall that fine Gurkha servicemen, even though never British subjects, were granted the right of abode in the UK because they served in the British Army. While all will recognise the scale of Home Office involvement with pressing immigration issues, it is unacceptable to continue to prevaricate about this claim and so not to honour our obligation to these veterans, who swore allegiance to the Crown, served full time in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces and were born British subjects.

It is four years since the Government first agreed to “undertake a thorough assessment”, as was promised by the noble Lord, Lord Bates. It is time for them to find a cure for their repetitive indecision syndrome.

Parliament: Freedom of Speech and the Rule of Law

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, on arranging this important and topical debate. While aware in general terms of the concept and protection provided by parliamentary privilege, I was grateful for the additional information in the helpful Library briefing note provided by Nicola Newson.

Rather than dwell on any specific instances of reliance on the privilege, I will add a couple of general points to this debate. I was struck by the explanation that parliamentary privilege is the privilege of each House as a whole, not just of an individual Member. In effect, all Members of a House—not just a spokesperson —are sheltered by privilege, even if they endorse or otherwise support the contribution of the spokesperson. They are sheltered even if they inadvertently say something deemed defamatory.

If all thus benefit, so too should they collectively be responsible for upholding the principles of comity. I further believe that Members of the other place have a greater need of privilege protection than Members here in your Lordships’ House. MPs face re-election to retain their place in Parliament; Members of this largely appointed House do not. This in turn seems to place a greater obligation on this House to abide very closely by the carefully structured rules of sub judice and the essential principles of comity.

Noble Lords should be careful never to use parliamentary privilege which might not be prayed in use in the other place. Although this House no longer includes the Appellate Committee, I like to feel that there remains a deep commitment to upholding the rule of law coursing through the veins of this House.

I fully endorse the description of the 1999 Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege that the legislature and the judiciary are, in their respective spheres, estates of the realm of—I stress this—equal status. As the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions concluded in 2012, there should be a presumption that,

“court orders are respected in Parliament”.

Should a Member of either House decide not to comply, he or she should,

“demonstrate that it is in the public interest”.

But there is more than one “public interest” at stake here. Undoubtedly the upholding of the rule of law—not least injunctions—is a clear public interest. What seems to be missing is what else may be honourably brigaded together under the heading “public interest”.

I do not think it upholds the unique importance of the rule of law to claim, for example, that totally different, additional, even contrary “public interests” coexist in any equivalent way: say, some issue, or some persons, that have been the subject of a media onslaught of hearsay and innuendo and which must be further highlighted and enlarged upon by means of parliamentary privilege. That seems to besmirch the importance and value of this unique privilege. Public interest is widely defined in common law, but in relation to parliamentary privilege, should it not be seen as more for matters of national importance and not just some partisan or parochial interest, let alone a personal or private one?

I will make one final point. A truth, from time immemorial, is that one should not blame the messenger if the message is not to one’s liking. However, in these Brexit-charged days, this dictum seems to be more and more overlooked—regrettably only last week over the selection of the chair of Wilton Park, when the individual as the messenger, rather than her message, was traduced in a way that did no credit to your Lordships’ House.

I have long believed, and tried to practise, that by extolling the strength of the case that one espouses, rather than only seeking to rubbish that of the opposition, one may be more likely to succeed. To the outside observer, negative attacks on the opposition suggest, subliminally, that one’s own case is weak and lacks the support and commitment to it that one might expect one to have and to express. Reliance on parliamentary privilege gives protection for defaming a person or issue at stake. But it is also fair to ask, when observing on a use of this privilege: has it been about a matter of national and positive value rather than a vehicle for negativism and spite?

To make use of parliamentary privilege—such a unique, omnipotent privilege—requires the House of the user to seek to ensure that its use is never abused. Not to do so in this media-savvy world might ultimately even call into question the medieval provenance of this privilege itself.

Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Troubles

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I too commend the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, for highlighting this disgraceful, dishonourable treatment of veterans. Yes, PSNI should seek to uphold the law, but the investigations are a travesty of justice, jumping from the failure of the Historical Enquiries Team to the failed Legacy Investigation Branch, both now superseded by the Historic Investigations Unit—HIU. It is odds on that HIU will fail and collapse. To be charitable, the failure is more to do with mission impossible than those who tackle it. It brings echoes of the equally discredited IHAT and its successors in Iraq. These protracted, expensive procedures fail. They are not fit for purpose and should not be perpetuated. They may claim to follow the law—piffle! They do not provide justice or fairness. There is weakness in leadership. What is needed is resolution. As Churchill might have noted, action this day. Will the Government act now?

For the future, the Armed Forces need a statutory limitation on investigations of combat operations. Invoking Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Act 1987 has been mooted. Surely we can do better and have in the Armed Forces Act a clear statement of limitation with no requirement to legislate on this vital issue in haste or confusion at the time of conflict. Those on live operations must know where they stand, free from worry in the heat of battle that their decisions and actions then will become the domain of a section of lawyers seeking to adduce criminal conduct years, even decades, later. Promises have been made by this and previous Administrations. All have stalled or petered out. This Government must do better.