Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke Excerpts

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

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is indeed unfortunate that the Government did not reach across this House in constructing this piece of legislation, as my noble friend Lord Touhig said. It has been clear this afternoon that there is a range of respect for, and also knowledge of, our armed services that should have been in the mix as this Bill was put together. I was pretty shocked when I read the remarks of the Advocate-General, the most senior judge in the armed services, that the Bill is “ill-conceived” and

“brings the UK armed forces into disrepute.”

I am not a lawyer and I had intended to concentrate my remarks on Clause 2 of the Bill. Before I do that, I have to say I have a particular concern that the Bill does not take into account the repeated reinvestigation of cases. That must have a much greater impact on the mental health of those who are the subject of accusations, as the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, pointed out, than the timescale for complaints. The MoD investigation effort is underresourced, insufficiently independent and not timely. This point was made with some force by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I am pleased that the Secretary of State has now said that there will be an ongoing opportunity to investigate that, but it should have been done before the Bill was put together and it should have been acknowledged in the Commons.

I move now to Clause 2. This is a clear area where Armed Forces personnel and their families are very much at a disadvantage compared with civilians who have similar complaints against other employers. As outlined by others, there is a complete cliff-edge at six years that the MoD has set. According to the MoD it promotes “greater protection”, but in reality it means less protection for the armed service personnel and more protection for the Ministry of Defence. In some cases, health conditions show up only at death. Asbestosis is one such case and there are other conditions, such as PTSD and deafness, that can take many years to show up. Why should the MoD as an employer get off scot free from claims that do not show up to a timetable? We all have a duty of care to our service men and women, and I am surprised that this was not amended when it was exposed in the House of Commons. Indeed, no amendments were passed in the House of Commons, and that is why I feel very concerned about the ability of this House to bring about amendments.

Like many others, I received a very helpful briefing from the Royal British Legion which shows that 500 claims have been made since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, some of them by bereaved families. It makes the very specific point that safeguards already exist to ensure that claims brought forward are judged appropriate.

Others have referred to the Armed Forces covenant. There is a specific clause in it that says members of the Armed Forces

“should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens.”

During the passage of this Bill in the Commons, it was suggested that the principle of no disadvantage in the covenant could not apply when comparing those injured or bereaved as a result of overseas operations with the general civilian population. But no caveat such as that exists, and nor should it exist—and it certainly was not in the Armed Forces Act 2011 that brought the Armed Forces covenant together. The covenant explicitly states that those who are injured or bereaved are additionally eligible for special recognition as they have given most in service and should be given greater, rather than lesser, protection.

In the passage of this Bill in this House, we have the opportunity to amend it and make it a better Bill. I would like to see us do that, but we need the humanity that should exist in the House of Commons to make sure that it is passed again. It is very unfair to our armed services, and God forbid that any one of us should suffer some of the disadvantage we see outlined in the background to the Bill.