Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Lord Dannatt and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 26th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dannatt (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is with predictable disappointment, but no less determination, that I return to commending to your Lordships the amendment in my name to establish a duty of care standard. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that in Committee and on Report this amendment stood in the names of the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Boyce and Lord Stirrup, thus reflecting support from former Chiefs of Staff of all three armed services.

It is fair to say that this overseas operations Bill has had something of a troubled passage through Parliament. It is extraordinary to note that the Minister piloting the Bill in the other place has now left his appointment as the Minister for Defence People and Veterans. What that says about smooth, joined-up government is a matter for speculation.

Notwithstanding the welcome concessions made by the Government this afternoon pertaining to our obligations under international law and Britain’s reputation as an upholder of a rules-based international community, the Bill is also about the wider interests of the people Mr Mercer in the other place sought to champion—namely, our defence people and veterans. The serving and veteran communities have been looking to the Bill to provide better protection from repeated, extended and vexatious investigations and possible prosecutions following their service overseas on deployed operations.

No one suggests for a moment that anyone is above the law. Indeed, soldiers take up arms only to protect the law, but when this new Bill passes into law it will singularly fail to provide the protection that serving and veteran members of the Armed Forces believe it should provide. For this reason, the duty of care standard amendment has been tabled to improve this Bill and enable it to achieve one of its original objectives. That it has been consistently opposed by government Ministers and the government majority in the other place is both puzzling and disappointing.

If the Government argue that the Bill as drafted would give serving and veteran members of the Armed Forces the protection that they seek and do not accept my amendment, will they commit to issuing a clear statement down the chain of command and out to the various veterans’ organisations as to how the Bill benefits and protects them? Those who are serving or have served have the right to believe that their employer will protect their interests. The Government have brought forward or implied various reasons why they will not support this duty of care standard amendment. It has been suggested that such an amendment is not necessary, in which case I repeat my request for a clear statement of benefit to be briefed to serving and veteran members of the Armed Forces.

It has been suggested that setting out a duty of care standard will invite further litigation from Armed Forces personnel. As I have argued previously, this is an empty argument, as in the amendment the Ministry of Defence has the opportunity to draw up its own statement of a duty of care standard, then act within it. That sounds to me like sensible, good practice to me—not something to be fearful of.

It has also been suggested to me that setting out a duty of care standard would create an unfortunate precedent. That argument misses the point as well. The inclusion of an Armed Forces covenant in the Armed Forces Act 2011 illustrates that the Armed Forces are acknowledged to be in a different category of employment from civilian occupations. The Armed Forces covenant was crafted and designed to recognise and protect that difference, so the argument of creating a precedent is also an empty one. The Armed Forces are in an employment category of their own.

Finally, I believe I have every right to be fearful. If the Government are failing to protect their employees from repeated, extended and vexatious investigations arising from overseas operations, what chance do Northern Ireland veterans have of gaining similar protection? I am not holding my breath, despite often-repeated statements that legislation would be introduced to address that problem too. I beg to move Motion E1 as an amendment to Motion E.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I have not received any requests from unlisted speakers. Does anyone in the Chamber wish to speak? No. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham.

Defence Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Dannatt and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, I generally support the intention behind Amendments 18 and 18C but I draw attention to two underlying concerns that I have with regard to the overall policy that the amendments refer to.

The noble Lord, Lord Astor, in proposing Amendment 18, made reference to the fact that the Reserve Forces of the future will look very different from the Reserve Forces of the past, and that, by design, is absolutely right. However, we have to remember why we have deployed so many members of the Reserve Forces over the past 10 years. Following the defence review of 1997-98 led by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, a certain amount of work was allocated to the Army, Navy and Air Force. In the case of our land forces, we would be involved in one medium-scale ongoing operation and another medium-scale operation of six months’ duration. As we all know perfectly well, from 2003 to the present date, and particularly in that very intense period from about 2006 to 2009, we were committed to two considerable-sized—I do not use the words “large” or “medium” because the definition does not fit either—operations in Iraq and Afghanistan concurrently, well over and above the planning assumptions that were put in place in the defence review of 1997-98. Therefore, it was inevitable that we were going to have to draw heavily on our Reserve Forces in order just to be able to do what we were going to do. It was not by design; it was by consequence.

Now, in the consequences of the 2010 SDSR, we have decided to reduce significantly—and I speak particularly in terms of the land forces—the size of our Regular Army, and we are going to compensate for that loss of capability by having a large reserve training force. I understand that, and in theory I could see it working, but I have two concerns.

First—I have to choose my words carefully because I do not want to appear more critical than I intend—I challenge the transparency and perhaps honesty of some aspects of that policy. What the Ministry of Defence has done in its very constrained cash situation is effectively to move off balance sheet some of the liability of our land forces and put them back in the Treasury. We will deploy large numbers of these Reserve Forces only in a future considerable-sized operation such as that of Iraq or Afghanistan of the past 10 years. It is when we deploy those large numbers of reservists that they have to be paid for. They are not going to be paid for by the Ministry of Defence because they will come from the contingency fund held by the Treasury. So the Ministry of Defence has solved a large chunk of its problem but has not necessarily solved our national problem. I merely raise question marks about whether we are being completely transparent about its shift in policy.

My second concern, which we have already alluded to today, is to do with the provision of mental health support. We know that reservists when demobilised are in a more difficult situation than regulars when they return from operations—the facts prove that—and therefore we are taking measures to alleviate the potential situation that some of the demobilised reservists will find themselves in. I question the fundamental morality of taking a policy decision that we will use more reservists on difficult deployed operations knowing that it will place them in an adverse mental health position. I wonder whether that is right. I raise those two points as underlying concerns, albeit these amendments, at least in part, speak to them.

My third and final point, which has been mentioned already today by the noble Lord, Lord Astor, is that we know we will have a gap between 2015 and 2017-18, the regulars having been reduced and our not being able, according to current plans, to increase the number of reservists. As recently as 2011 it was still government policy that we would not reduce the Regular Forces until we had built up the reservists. We have changed that policy and so we are accepting risk. That risk could be reduced by slowing down the rundown of the Regular Forces at the moment, but I presume that the Government would say that, looking beyond Afghanistan, from the end of this year onwards they cannot see the prospect of another major operation and so it is a risk worth carrying.

Many noble Lords have mentioned the issue of risk in the past and I simply point to this as another risk that we are taking. We have Armed Forces that are less capable than they were and, certainly in terms of our land forces, they are smaller than they were, and we are willingly taking on additional risk. I raise those three points as concerns about the underlying policy, although I agree that Amendment 18C attends, at least in part, to the mental health issue.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, we, too, welcome the Minister’s Amendment 18. As he said, there was broad support for this when it was debated in the House of Commons. It is therefore appreciated that the Government have brought forward this amendment and accepted the principle of the new clause to be agreed in this House.

Amendment 18F calls for a report within one year of enactment. Its wording is too restrictive to reflect accurately issues as they may arise around viability and cost-effectiveness and we would not wish to support that proposed clause.

Providing an annual report to the Secretary of State, which must also be laid before Parliament, provides reassurance that the position will be kept under review for all three services. We have quite naturally concentrated more on the Army than the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, partly because of the numbers involved and partly because the Reserves are integrated already, in a different way, with the Royal Air Force. Obviously within the annual report it will be helpful to identify where there are differences between the three services and to identify examples of best practice which might cross-refer between them.

As the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said in his remarks about mental health, there is a general agreement that this is an important issue. We agree with the Minister that this is covered within Amendment 18 and we do not see the need for additional medical detail, particularly in the Bill. There may well be a case for having guidance which sets this out more clearly, but not in the Bill.

It is timely that today sees the publication of the Veterans’ Transition Review of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft. Almost certainly within that there will be recommendations which will help to influence the response to or implementation of what is happening to the reserves under this Bill. Will there be a government response to that review? It would be helpful to have a debate on it in the light of the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft.

In summary, we support Amendment 18, and while seeing value in the proposed two new clauses of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, we do not see them as essential to the Bill.