Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, with every Bill this Government present to this House, we see a further erosion of civil liberties, the rule of law reduced and, of course, a constant attack on parliamentary democracy—and this Bill is no different. It is pretty terrible. I am really heartened to have listened to the comments so far, which clearly indicate that there is a lot of dissatisfaction about the Bill, and I presume that it will be very heavily amended.

The Bill is very much at odds with the United Nations special rapporteurs. The Government, Ministers in particular, have consistently expressed some horrific sentiments over the years which seek to marginalise and undermine the UN special rapporteurs as being somehow politically motivated. This has come up in relation to the Government’s treatment of people who are in poverty or homeless, people with disabilities, and now victims of torture and other crimes at the hands of British troops. It undermines any claim that the United Nations might be a global leader for peace, justice and human rights.

Beyond the United Nations, many other experts have warned about how the Bill undermines the UK’s so-called commitment to human rights and a rules-based international order. Indeed, today in the Daily Mail there is a headline: “Theresa May blasts Boris’s ‘moral failure’”. She has criticised Boris Johnson, our Prime Minister, “for abandoning British values” and

“slammed his threat to break international law and tear up foreign aid.”

The article says:

“The former prime minister says the two actions were not ones that ‘raised our credibility in the eyes of the world’. If Britain is to lead internationally, she says, we must live up to ‘our values’.”


The Bill clearly does not live up to our values. It is based on fiction and conspiracy theories—it could have been written by the Daily Mail comment section. It stems from a false assertion that there is some sort of crisis of vexatious claims against UK forces, although in truth, hardly any criminal prosecutions have been brought against service personnel in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan. On the contrary, the inquiry into the death in of Baha Mousa in September 2003 revealed torture, unlawful killing and the use of prohibited techniques by British soldiers. It makes harrowing reading.

Instead of fiddling with prosecutorial discretion and the statute of limitations, Parliament should instead be implementing a comprehensive, effective, independent system of investigation of complaints against military personnel. Repeat investigations are ordered by courts because the original investigations were so shoddy that they needed to be conducted again. We are talking about interference by the chain of command and refusal to pass on to military police and prosecution. Service personnel would be greatly helped if they knew that future allegations would be fairly, reasonably, independently and rigorously investigated within a sensible amount of time, and one way or another resolved. However, this legislation does not address any of that, and the provisions in the Bill are nonsense.

The courts already have a very wide range of case management powers. They can throw out unmeritorious and vexatious claims at a very early stage and can make court orders against vexatious claimants. The Government must explain why this is not sufficient to deal with these claims, and then explain why the military needs a special system of dealing with unmeritorious claims which is not available to other defendants in legal proceedings.

Then there is the downright stupid fact that this legislation, rather than protecting service personnel, would in fact be likely to open up British forces to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, as other noble Lords have already mentioned. This prospect renders the whole Bill counterproductive and downright dangerous. Rather than face investigation and prosecution in the UK, troops would be exposed to the risk of international arrest and, of course, prosecution and trial at The Hague.

I asked a former general for his advice on the Bill. After some thought, he gave a considered answer, saying that it could be dangerous for our troops because it might mean that other regimes and the troops of other countries would be more inclined to torture our troops or treat them badly, in return for our lack of concern about torture.

I therefore feel that the Government should pause the Bill and start to think quite seriously about whether it is needed and, if it is needed, about how to improve it.