Armed Forces: Housing

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as the noble Lord will know, part of the problem has been the sheer number of moves that service families have been making, particularly in the Army. With the return of our forces from Germany and the changes in the forces structures that we are implementing, we hope that there will be less frequent and fewer rapid moves, which would enable service families to be consulted a good deal more widely.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

Can the Minister tell us how many of the service family houses are fitted with carbon monoxide alarms, given the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning, particularly in poorly maintained buildings? We know that some of these buildings are poorly maintained. If the family move in and put the heating straight on, that may be the night when they get carbon monoxide poisoning.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is a very good question, and I will of course have to write to the noble Baroness about that. I do not have the accurate, detailed information.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Tuesday 4th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

My Lords, this amendment has been rewritten in the light of the debate we had in Committee. It has, I hope, addressed the criticisms of the previous wording. It is about the procedure on arrest of somebody for substance abuse, violence against the person or damage to property. This relates quite specifically to alcohol-fuelled aggression, a problem that sadly is increasing, and possibly to drug-fuelled aggression. The alcohol-fuelled problem is much greater. The aim of the amendment is simply to bring into line the military court system with the civilian court system.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act, known as PACE, set out criteria for the police station in civilian life which present an automatic safeguard that does not exist in the military court system as PACE does not apply. Some of these safeguards include: access to a forensic medical examiner, addiction and arrest referral and mental health liaison and assessment teams. I am most grateful to the Minister and to officials who met me and spent some time discussing the details of this amendment. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the wording just after the proposed new subsection (1)(b), which says that,

“prior to any decision being made as to charge, consideration shall be given and the conclusions recorded as to the possible diversion of the person for specialist services”.

All this amendment is asking is that it is considered. It is not asking that any more than that happens. It does not mean that there has to be detailed testing. It simply means that the person making the arrest should have a prompt to think about the problem.

I understand that probation trusts are going to become increasingly involved in the assessment of Armed Forces personnel when they are up for charges. Indeed, Hampshire Probation Trust has been named as one. One of the difficulties, of course, is that like other areas it is facing stringent budget cuts, including front-line cuts. I would be concerned as to how a probation trust is going to have probation officers in areas such as Newcastle or Yorkshire or wherever there are other barracks because they are quite far-flung. I note that there has been a recent advertisement for probation officers to cover the whole of Germany. It is for two officers. It is a very large area for just two people to cover. There is concern about the level of training and support that these people will have. Therefore, I hope that the Government will be able to provide some reassurance that the prosecuting authority will seek to engage with local probation trusts, wherever appropriate, because a local probation trust will be familiar with local issues and local diversion projects both in the community and in barracks.

Any probation officers dealing with people from the military need to have proper training to identify underlying mental health and substance misuse issues. The way that such cases present in the military may be different from how they present in what one might call the purely civilian population.

The idea of an intervention before charging is precisely to avoid stigmatisation and to avoid court proceedings when other interventions would be more appropriate and, indeed, perhaps less expensive. In the civilian justice system there are many intervention and diversion possibilities before a person is charged. For example, if the custody sergeant or arresting officer suspects drug and alcohol or underlying mental health issues, he will, in fulfilling his duty, call in a police doctor. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 there are triggers to look for evidence if drugs or alcohol are suspected. I quote from the guidance:

“The drug test is a screening tool only and the result cannot be used … against the detainee ... The result of the test can lead to referrals for treatment and can also be used to inform court decisions on bail and sentencing”.

If that guidance were adopted for military courts, we would certainly not run the risk of any results being used against a detainee but an intervention might provide the support needed to deal with the fundamental problem behind the offending behaviour.

The problem of stigmatisation is particularly marked in the Armed Forces. In medicine there has been, and perhaps still is, a somewhat macho culture in terms of coping with very traumatic situations. People suppress their feelings and have a drink, and it is quite a macho thing to hold your drink or to cope with drugs. When you fail to hold your drink and maintain that bravado, you are stigmatised as being weak because you have failed the alcohol or drugs test. People’s inhibitions about admitting to having a problem or a trauma is therefore perpetrated by this macho culture.

Early detection and intervention is extremely cost-effective and was monetised by the New Economics Foundation. I have the figures relating to women, although I do not have them for men. The cost of incarcerating a woman for a year is £56,000 and the cost of locking her up for 10 years is £10 million. Therefore, on those figures, early intervention with someone for whom such incarceration had no benefit at all could certainly quickly be seen to be very cost-effective for society. There is simply a need to ask whether the person misuses substances and whether he wishes to self-harm or has ever tried to self-harm or commit suicide. That opportunity for self-disclosure in a safe setting prior to charging must be encouraged and nurtured by the Ministry of Defence, as opposed to the current culture of shaming a person and heaping punishment on them. With the help of outside lawyers, I ran the Minister’s Committee stage briefing past former service personnel. I am afraid their response suggests that the impression that a lot is already in place may be a sign of slightly misplaced faith in the current system, and it reinforced my resolve to bring forward this amendment.

In the civilian justice system there is a fairly new joint initiative between the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health to identify people known to the community mental health team as suffering from mental health issues or as being treated for substance misuse so that they can be dealt with fairly and appropriately. I would hope that the same could be put in place for the court martial service and the defence community mental health teams, and I think that this amendment would help to stimulate such collaboration.

In Committee, objections were raised about the pressure on the military court system to deal with every case through psychiatric reports and drug testing, but the wording has removed the obligation. As I said before, it simply makes it a consideration which lays some, although not an onerous, measure of legal responsibility. The wording creates a consideration, not an obligation, and leaves room for discretion. Some important current initiatives could certainly be built on and would, I think, be completely compatible with the wording of the amendment. For example, it looks as though the Trauma Risk Management programme, which is a peer-review support programme used in Afghanistan, will be a very effective way of supporting deeply traumatised members of our Armed Forces.

It is important to remember that many service personnel are very young indeed and do not have the emotional infrastructure behind them to help them to cope with the traumas that they encounter. Their repeated infractions are often symptoms of far deeper problems, some of which may have occurred before they ever joined the Armed Forces. When the revealing of those multiple traumas is alcohol-fuelled, it can result in the injury of and violence towards people around them, particularly within the personnel’s own family.

I suggest that lower welfare costs and the effect on budgets across all government departments will come about by dealing with the underlying issues through early intervention. That is the spirit behind the amendment. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who regrets that he is unable to be here at the moment, feels that the amendment should meet the criticisms made in Committee, and it should also help to turn around the existing attitude within the military court system, bringing it into line with the civilian court system. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recognise the noble Baroness’s concerns, which form the background to her amendment and to the way in which she has responded to points made in Committee on her earlier amendment. She wishes to bring awareness of and investigation into potential links between substance abuse, mental disorder and the committing of offences within the Armed Forces as close as possible to what is now required within the civilian justice system.

My understanding is that alcohol abuse is currently a much more common problem in the forces than drug abuse. Mental health issues—particularly those associated with post-conflict trauma—are, however, a wider concern.

I recognise the noble Baroness’s concern that there are insufficient and insufficiently trained staff to provide the examinations and reports that are needed. I reassure her that the MoD will look again at the level of provision, but I am informed that there have not been recent complaints from within the military that resources are inadequate.

She raised the question of Germany. I have just checked again my previous understanding that UK forces remaining in Germany are now concentrated in two geographical areas and are not spread across the whole country. The appointment of two probation officers therefore seems appropriate.

There remain some real problems with the exact terms of the amendment as drafted, which make it impossible for the Government to accept. However, we do accept and share the underlying concern that the noble Baroness is addressing. The importance of the psychological state of an offender and the appropriateness in some cases of a specialist social or mental health approach instead of prosecution is well understood in the service justice system, as in the civilian system. However, the framework within which the forces operate is not, and cannot be, identical to the framework within which civilian offences are handled. None the less, the MoD and the Armed Forces are conscious of the importance of recognising at an early stage those who may need specialist attention. If possible, this must happen before offences are committed or prosecutions are started. That is part of the service support system.