Armed Services: Claims

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, 60 years ago, as a young national serviceman, I was on active service in Cyprus. I record this not as a declaration of interest but rather as a boast because, together with a great number of other people, I am proud to have served Queen and country and it now distresses me, as it plainly distresses lots of others, to see how today, often years after valiant service in conflicts abroad, our forces are subject to apparently endless claims and allegations of misconduct. Not only is this upsetting, but it affects our nation’s combat capabilities by damaging morale, recruitment and our fighting strength. The problems of these largely now historic allegations are so many and so diverse that I have scarcely time even to outline them, let alone elaborate their possible solutions. There are multiple criminal allegations, multiple civil claims, claims by foreign combatants, claims by foreign civilians caught up the conflicts and claims by our own forces against the MoD. Essentially, as I shall finally come to suggest, the way ahead I would propose is not merely, as recently foreshadowed by government, to derogate from the ECHR in future combat but to reverse the trend of recent years whereby human rights obligations have been extended beyond the domestic sphere even to foreign battlefields.

First, however, I shall briefly chart the way these problems have developed and how we have reached our present sorry situation. The great majority of the criminal allegations and civil claims date from 2003 to 2009 in Iraq. Those years covered three phases: the initial invasion, the occupation and then four years as part of a multinational force assisting the Iraqi Government to maintain law and order. IHAT, the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, was established in 2010 to investigate the alleged ill treatment of Iraqi civilians in British custody. It was later extended to those not in custody. Initially this duty arose under the Armed Forces Act 2006 and previous such Acts, but later it had to be greatly extended to discharge what in 2011 Strasbourg held to be the UK’s investigative obligations under Articles 2 and 3 of the convention. Its initial case load of 165 cases to be completed by 2012 has grown hugely over the years, so that even in April this year there still remained 325 allegations of unlawful killing and over 1,300 cases of alleged ill treatment—hopefully to be completed by December 2019 at the cost of some £57 million.

Over the years, IHAT’s difficulties have increased, largely from the Strasbourg Court’s ruling in Al-Skeini in 2011 that, contrary to all previous understanding, the convention applied to our operations in Iraq. First, IHAT’s investigators were held to be insufficiently independent, and military police had to be replaced by naval and retired civilian police. Then IHAT was found insufficiently independent of the Executive for Article 2 and 3 investigations, for which inquisitorial inquiries on the model of coroners’ inquests were held to be required.

I should add that IHAT’s inquiries were serving also to meet the requirements of the ICC, whose prosecutor in 2014 opened a preliminary examination into war crimes—the alleged systematic abuse of detainees in Iraq. This followed a report by a retired senior judge into the notorious death of Baha Musa in 2003. Later, however, in December 2014, another retired judge reported in the al-Sweady case rejecting most of the Article 2 and 3 allegations arising from a number of detentions in 2004. Later still, in September this year, Sir George Newman published a report into the death of Ahmed Ali, who drowned in a canal as one of a number of looters driven into the water as punishment. The judge found a manifest disregard for the risk to Mr Ali’s life, but his greater criticism was the Army’s failure to train, instruct and guide the men in policing methods and how to deal with lawlessness, not least widespread looting, as in Basra.

Of course it is imperative in any future conflict that our troops should be better prepared for what often become essentially peacekeeping missions. Equally obviously, our troops should be held to the highest standards and any truly credible allegations of criminal wrongdoing should be properly investigated. However, it is fervently to be hoped that never again will it be necessary to embark on another vast IHAT-like process and engage in a series of Article 2 and 3-compliant judicial inquiries, with all the enormous problems that these face. It is unsurprising that in his September 2016 review of IHAT Sir David Calvert-Smith described the interviewing of witnesses as,

“the single most intractable problem”,

that it faces. Indeed, we now find ourselves paying Iraqi witnesses to travel abroad to give evidence against British soldiers.

One should note that despite all this huge effort and expenditure, barely a handful of investigations have led to any further action, and punishment thus far has been limited to a single fine. Meanwhile, alongside these endless criminal investigations—and, no doubt, to a degree prompted by them—a growing number of civil actions have been brought against the MoD, both public law claims for convention-compliant investigations and private law claims for compensation. Mostly these allege ill treatment, unlawful detention and in some cases unlawful killing. In September this year the Court of Appeal in al-Saadoon recorded over 1,200 public law claims and over 600 compensation claims, in addition to some 250 claims already settled. True it is that the UK has indeed paid out some £20 million or £30 million to settle a number of claims, most of which were doubtless well founded, though one suspects that few were of the Baha Musa kind. However, it seems likely that many claims are spurious. As the judge concluded in the al-Sweady inquiry,

“the vast majority of the allegations made against the British military … including all the most serious allegations … were wholly and entirely without merit or justification”.

Those are just the Iraqi claims. A series of cases also had to deal with a number of claims arising from the Afghanistan conflict—largely claims for wrongful detention—the lead case, Serdar Mohammed, being brought by a Taliban commander.

What, then, can be done to stem such a tide of claims following on from any future foreign combat? I am of the clear view that it is international humanitarian law, sometimes called the law of armed conflict, based largely on the Geneva Conventions, which strikes the appropriate balance between military necessity and humanity and which therefore should regulate the conduct of such operations, not the human rights convention, which is, rather, designed to regulate the domestic exercise of state power. Our American allies, for example, are not subject in such conflicts to inappropriately exacting human rights requirements; nor does the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply to its forces fighting abroad.

We should therefore, in any future military conflict overseas, derogate, so far as we are able, under Article 15 of the convention, but I cannot pretend that derogation is a simple, straightforward and guaranteed route to immunity from all future human rights claims. Alas, I have no time today to go into the problems and limitations of derogation, but I understand that my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead will touch on these. So I would not stop with derogation. Rather, I would legislate to overcome the central problem we face following Strasbourg’s 2011 judgment in Al-Skeini holding, contrary to all previous understanding and this House’s earlier decision in the same case, that the convention applies not just within Council of Europe states but anywhere—in broad terms, whenever a state through its agents can be said to exercise control, an approach which itself leads to grave doubts and confusion as to its limits.

I am certainly not advocating that we should withdraw from the convention, so, subject to whatever may be achieved through derogation, we shall remain liable on the international law plane to any future Strasbourg ruling. But we could and, I believe, now should legislate for domestic law purposes to amend the Human Rights Act itself to confine its application to the UK. In 2007, when Al-Skeini was before this House, we had to decide, first, whether the Act applied extraterritorially and, secondly, who is within the UK’s jurisdiction for the purposes of the Convention. The late and great Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the wisest among us, dissented on the first point. He would have held that the Act has no extraterritorial application. The remaining four of us, however—unwisely, as I now think—held the contrary. We thought the Act should track the convention, but we did so explicitly on the basis that the convention itself applied only within the area of the member states with, as I myself put it,

“just a limited extra-territorial reach in certain closely defined circumstances”,

such as in an embassy abroad or, by analogy in Baha Mousa’s case, in a British military detention unit abroad. Naturally, one is reluctant to deny complainants any domestic law remedy, it being implicit in all this that we may choose not to give effect to some adverse international law ruling. For my part, however, I would find this much easier to justify in the present context than with regard to, say, prisoner voting, where it seems to me that the Government are being just plain silly.

Thus far, I have said nothing in respect of claims of deaths and injuries suffered by our own forces in conflicts abroad: claims against the MoD both under the Human Rights Act and in negligence. A number of such claims have been brought and, following a 4:3 majority judgment in the Supreme Court in Smith in 2013 refusing to strike them out, they remain undecided. I say nothing today as to whether the majority judgment may be regarded as right or wrong, but there seems little doubt that it has caused serious concerns in the MoD and the military about what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, called, “the judicialisation of war”, and that it may lead to our Armed Forces becoming dangerously hyper-cautious in conflict.

What, then, should be done about this? Much has been written on this topic, perhaps most helpfully last year in the Policy Exchange paper, Clearing the Fog of Law. With regard to claims in negligence, I would suggest that the time has come, not to expand the rather elusive common law doctrine of combat immunity but rather to make a ministerial order under Section 2(2) of the Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Act 1987 to revive, in the case of warlike operations outside the UK, the effect of Section 10 of the old Crown Proceedings Act 1947, which had prevented claims for injury or death on military service. Section 10 was repealed in 1987 really because personal injury damages had by then risen way beyond the benefits payable to those injured on service under the Armed Forces pension scheme.

In fairness, and indeed as a matter of political reality, a ministerial order ending tort claims would now need to be accompanied by a scheme to compensate the injured fully on a no-fault basis. This would avoid all the problems of legal proceedings by way of stress, delay and expense and, of course, end the basic problem presented by Smith that the risk of litigation itself results in a damagingly risk-averse approach to soldiering.

As for human rights claims by our own forces—

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

As this is a time-limited debate, I think I should be allowed to finish. As for human rights claims by our own forces, if the HRA is confined territorially, as I suggest it should be, such claims could be brought only in Strasbourg, and as to this, I tend to share the view of the minority in Smith that that court would itself shrink from adverse judgments based necessarily on reviewing the conduct of our military operations abroad.

All I have said is really but a thumbnail sketch of the many difficult questions that arise, and I now look forward to hearing the views of the number of real experts—all noble and several gallant, too—who I am delighted to note are to follow in this debate.

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[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, first I declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Military Court Advocates, with experience of courts martial and military matters over a period of some 20 years.

Regarding claims against the Ministry of Defence, I am with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, in pointing out that these claims have been essentially on procurement issues. Even the case to which the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, referred—regarding friendly fire—was as a result of inadequate communications equipment between the tanks that fired and the troops who received that fire. It was essentially an equipment problem. These claims against the Ministry of Defence are not on the basis of wrong orders, or no orders, being given in the field of battle but merely the putting of our troops into that battle without the necessary and proper protections that they should have. What has followed from that, and I know that noble and gallant Lords will appreciate this, is that the equipment has been improved in every case. They have been given better equipment; their service has been made that much safer as a result of the claims that have been brought.

I do not believe in a scheme of statutory compensation, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, suggested—though I congratulate him on bringing this debate forward, because it is very important—for the reason given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope: that such statutory schemes tend to get more and more parsimonious. I was once a member of the criminal injuries compensation board when compensation was paid on the basis of civil damages, and kept in step. I resigned from that board when, back in 1992, the scheme was altered so that a tariff scheme, without regard to the particular circumstances of the individual, was introduced. Statutory schemes are not the answer.

I turn now to the claims for torture and inhuman and degrading treatment brought by people as a result of their alleged treatment by members of our Armed Forces. I ask the Minister: has a single one of the 326 cases, for which £19.6 million has been paid by way of settlement, been brought by a combatant as a result of injuries that he received in actual warfare—in combat? I should have thought that combat immunity, although it may shade a little at the edges, is a sufficient defence to any such claim. I think that we are dealing simply with prisoners of war and civilians and the treatment that has been meted out to them. If combat immunity is at all vague, it is because it is generally a question of fact, not of law.

I was in the Baha Mousa case—I represented one of the officers who was charged with neglect of duty—and I very much recall what it was about. It was an absolute disgrace. Do your Lordships appreciate that the case against the corporal who pleaded guilty to a war crime and received 12 months’ imprisonment for it was standing at the door of the stinking prison in which these prisoners were kept, inviting passers-by—military personnel—to come in and take a shot at hitting or kicking the Iraqis who were hooded and tied in that compound? That was the sort of circumstance that led to Baha Mousa receiving 93 separate injuries, as the evidence said.

In the al-Skeini case, it was decided that the civil claim could go forward on the basis that the prison could be regarded as an equivalent to an embassy. Certainly there were no Ferrero Rocher things being handed out there. It was the most dreadful place, and for it to be compared with an embassy to give jurisdiction was completely wrong.

Reference has been made to Lieutenant-Colonel Mercer, who served some 20 years as a lawyer in the Army. He served in Northern Ireland and also in Bosnia. He volunteered his expertise to the defence team of which I was one—in fact, specifically to me—when we were defending seven paratroopers from the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment in a court martial in Colchester in 2005. They were all acquitted. I remember that case for one very good reason.

An Iraqi lady had been brought over from a village in Iraq because she had complained that a paratrooper had ripped off the front of her dress and exposed her to the villagers, and to be exposed in that way was the worst thing that could happen to a woman in Iraq. She came to the witness box and took the oath on the Koran. Then, to the surprise of everybody, she announced, “I have now taken an oath on the Koran, and I have to tell you that everything I’ve said so far has been a lie”. That was the quality of the evidence in that case. Judge Blackett, the Judge Advocate-General, when dismissing the case said that,

“most of the Iraqi witnesses have exaggerated their evidence”.

Three women, one of whom was pregnant at the time of the incident,

“have admitted telling lies that they were seriously assaulted when they were not … Others have been shown to tell lies”.

He added:

“In their own admission these Iraqis saw an opportunity to seek financial advantage from the British Army. They frequently spoke of fasil, or blood money, and compensation in relation to what were patently exaggerated claims”.

I certainly had my eyes opened by that case; falsified claims could very easily be brought, and discovered.

Article 1 of the European convention requires states to uphold the rights guaranteed by the convention within its jurisdiction—not its territory, its jurisdiction. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, suggested that the extent of the European covenant should be confined to the United Kingdom. That, of course, would have meant that the Baha Mousa family could not have brought any proceedings. But the al-Skeini judgment was considered by the European Court of Human Rights, and it said that,

“if universality truly is the foundation of human rights, why should it matter for the purpose of its extraterritorial application that the ECHR is a regional treaty? Jurisdiction either means control of a territory or it does not, and people either are within the state’s jurisdiction or they are not”.

It held that,

“following the removal from power of the Ba’ath regime … the United Kingdom … assumed in Iraq the exercise of some of the public powers normally to be exercised by a sovereign government”.

In other words, it was within the United Kingdom jurisdiction. So we ought not to confine the convention territorially to the United Kingdom.

As for derogation, I follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, again in saying that it is very difficult to derogate from the convention. The phrase,

“in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation”,

could not possibly be applied to our invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan.

I was brought up in a world in which barratry still existed—that is the stirring up of litigation. It was abolished only in 1967. Ambulance chasing was against the law but, since that time, it has started again. I was against the legal profession advertising its services, but that stopped in 1986. That has led to the sorts of abuses that we have seen by certain very limited firms of lawyers who are facing professional obloquy. I do not believe that commanders in the field are afraid of firms of lawyers of that calibre, and I am quite sure that they follow far more readily the legal advice that is always at their hand.

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[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, for tabling this Motion. The issues that it covers have been debated on a number of occasions in this House in recent years. I thank the noble and learned Lord for his continued concern about these matters, his masterly résumé of the issues involved and this timely opportunity to take stock of recent developments. The contributions to this debate have shown how much is at stake here, above all the ability and confidence of our Armed Forces to conduct effective operations in our national interest.

Before I outline the measures we are taking to mitigate these issues, I should start by emphasising the point well made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup: that the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom are required, without exception, to comply with all applicable domestic and international law. That said, a series of court judgments have created uncertainties about some aspects of the law relating to the conduct of armed conflict, or unintended consequences that could well impact on our Armed Forces’ ability to train and operate. The Government have expressed their concerns about this in recent years, and the manifesto commitment last year, which was to,

“ensure our Armed Forces overseas are not subject to persistent human rights claims that undermine their ability to do their job”,

was a clear signal of their intent to tackle the effects of legal claims and legal developments.

The strength of interest and the quality of debate we have heard here today demonstrate the breadth and complexity of the challenges we face. Military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to an unprecedented volume of litigation about, for example, ECHR jurisdiction, detention, and how international humanitarian law and the European Convention on Human Rights interact in armed conflict, and which include thousands of private law claims for compensation. The personal impact on service personnel has been brought to light in the context of IHAT—the Iraq Historic Allegations Team. We have also seen what I will simply call questionable conduct on the part of some law firms, as well as escalating costs for defending claims or conducting investigations where the evidence or allegations are, at best, unsubstantiated or, at worst, based on lies, as witnessed in the Al-Sweady public inquiry.

All these problems require a broad-based response; there is no simple remedy. The Government have accordingly been giving careful consideration to how to manage the adverse effects of these legal challenges and avoid similar difficulties in the wake of future conflicts. We have already taken a number of steps to help this mitigation. First, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned, the Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary have already set out the Government’s intention to derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights, where appropriate. I was grateful for the comments of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, on this issue. Let me be clear here: there is no question of a blanket opt-out from the ECHR. If and when a derogation is made, it could be made only from certain Articles of the convention and would have to be fully justified by the circumstances pertaining at the time. Where justified in the light of circumstances, it could serve to limit some of the opportunistic ECHR-based claims we have seen, and would reflect what we consider to be the right balance between these rights and the law of armed conflict.

I am afraid I must take issue with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, who criticised the idea that we might derogate from the ECHR. This would not, as she certainly implied, put British troops above the law. She stated that international humanitarian law would not be enough to ensure that justice would be done. Our Armed Forces are, at all times, subject to UK service law, which includes the criminal law of England and Wales. International humanitarian law, based on the Geneva Conventions, will still apply in situations of armed conflict and there are some rights that cannot be derogated, such as protection from torture and slavery. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, asked whether any cases involving Iraqi prisoners had been brought by combatants. The answer is no—these cases do not involve the principle of combat immunity. The vast majority result from the ECHR decisions that UK forces did not have the right to detain people suspected of insurgency.

On another point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, to deduce from the many millions paid out in compensation that there has been extensive wrongdoing would be wrong. The vast majority of the sums paid out were paid because the European Court of Human Rights decided that the UK had no right to detain dangerous insurgents in Iraq. The court has since significantly altered its position on that point, but we will not be able to recover the money. It is worth adding that Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also permits states to derogate from certain rights, providing the conditions as set out are met. I emphasise that, if and when the UK does derogate, care will be taken to ensure that it is wholly consistent with our other international legal obligations, as required by Article 15 of the ECHR.

It is important that I should make one other thing clear, especially in response to the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt. We take seriously our legal and moral duty to investigate credible allegations of criminal offences and to prosecute, where appropriate. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, that the case of Baha Mousa serves as a reminder that a small number of serious offences were undoubtedly committed. I stress that the overwhelming majority of service personnel deployed on operations conduct themselves to the highest standards and in accordance with the law. The Al-Sweady inquiry, which I mentioned, has demonstrated that some allegations will be exaggerated or even false—the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, referred to others in that category.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, suggested that any derogation should be subject to parliamentary approval. Let me make clear what the process would be. A designation order can be made by the Defence Secretary, which would come into force from the date made. However, under the existing law, a designation order under the Human Rights Act must be subsequently approved by each House of Parliament within 40 days from that date in order to amend the terms of the Human Rights Act. In this context, perhaps I could address a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. It is important to note that, to date, derogations from the ECHR by other states, including the United Kingdom, have been in respect of activities on their own territories. The announcement by the UK to derogate, where appropriate, for armed conflict overseas is, I hope, a clear statement of intent.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, suggested that we should remove ourselves from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, as the United States has done. I would just point out that the obligation to investigate serious allegations against our Armed Forces is based squarely on UK domestic law. As long as that is done, we have nothing to fear from the International Criminal Court. We should remember that, in the context of the Baha Mousa case, it is not true to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, did, that the family could not have brought proceedings had it not been for the ECHR. The Baha Mousa family was in fact able to sue the Ministry of Defence under common law. A settlement was eventually reached as a result of mediation.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I did not suggest that. They succeeded in the Supreme Court.

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments if I misunderstood him.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, asked whether the Government would retrospectively end prosecutions. The Government are extremely reluctant to propose retrospective legislation because it compromises the principle of legal certainty. However, we will seek to ensure that investigations are brought to a close as quickly as possible.

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[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I certainly did not say that. I said that I could not imagine any case arising that the Ministry of Defence would settle where combat immunity was a defence.

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful. However, to clarify this point, the Challenger case mentioned by the noble Lord turns on training rather than procurement, but the important point here is that no one now knows the extent to which military decisions may be questioned in court. That is the problem the Government must, and will, address. I also suggest that combat immunity is a real problem. We have three major cases progressing through the courts at the moment, and many others are stayed behind them. Therefore, to suggest that this is only a minor issue involving one or two people is incorrect.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, suggested that the Armed Forces compensation scheme should be made subject to statute. In fact, the scheme covers any claims made since 6 April 2005. It was made part of the Armed Forces Act of that year.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, suggested that one solution would be to reinstate Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act. I am hesitant about that solution. It is one of the options we have been looking at but it would be possible only under certain specific circumstances, and careful consideration would need to be given to the impact on service personnel. Certainly, I agree with the noble and learned Lord that such a step would not be sufficient on its own.

I also want to make it clear that we remain unequivocal in our commitment and duty to look after our Armed Forces and veterans, particularly those who are subject to investigation. What is more, we remain steadfast in our commitment to support those who face legal proceedings. In respect of the Iraq conflict, the IHAT is now making rapid progress towards its expected completion by the end of 2019—a point which Sir David Calvert-Smith affirmed in his recent review of the IHAT. Some 70% of the more than 3,000 allegations received have already been disposed of, the vast majority without the need to interview service personnel or veterans. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, that we are confident, based in part on Sir David Calvert-Smith’s report, that the IHAT will be able to meet the progress targets it has set. The IHAT’s workforce is comprised of Royal Navy Police and experienced former civilian police officers who are dedicated to conducting their investigations as sensitively and effectively as possible. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, questioned whether three days was enough training on the conditions in Iraq, and said that perhaps Ministers were not briefed about the proceedings often enough. There is a balance to be struck here. Ministers absolutely respect the IHAT’s independence, but I am sure they will take full account of any recommendations the Commons Defence Committee makes on this matter.

I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, suggested that we are actively paying Iraqi witnesses to travel to interviews. I make it clear that the IHAT pays only travel and subsistence expenses and loss of earnings. That is essential if the necessary investigations are to proceed.

My noble friend Lord Robathan turned our attention to issues in Northern Ireland, and said very powerfully that something has to be done about prosecutions of veterans in Northern Ireland 30 or 40 years after the event. I very much share my noble friend’s concern that these legacy investigations must recognise that the vast majority of deaths in the Troubles were the direct responsibility of the terrorists. Northern Ireland would not be the peaceful place it is today without the tireless work and many sacrifices made by the Armed Forces.

The noble Lord, Lord Bew, also referred to issues in Northern Ireland, and in particular the soldiers from Bloody Sunday who face prosecutions, whereas the terrorists do not. The noble Lord will recognise that, as a Ministry of Defence Minister, I cannot comment on or influence possible prosecution decisions. I am sure that those who make such decisions will take due note of his words.

I shall of course write to noble Lords whose questions I have not had time to answer today. At the end of a debate of this kind it is right for me to conclude by reiterating my unwavering admiration for our Armed Forces. The job they do, protecting and defending our freedom, security and prosperity in often difficult and challenging circumstances, is second to none. In this spirit the Government are seeking to move forward and deliver their manifesto commitment to ensure that our Armed Forces are able to do their job effectively, safe in the knowledge that they have our full and unstinting support, and confident in our ability and intent to protect their freedoms when they return home.