Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Thomas of Gresford

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

My Lords, I welcome the probing amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. He is absolutely right to raise one of the issues that upsets huge numbers of the British population in any military intervention—the danger of civilian casualties. The idea that that should be added to the report that is brought quarterly is clearly welcome. I very much hope that the Minister will be willing to look into that. One advantage of the United Kingdom entering into the war in Iraq and over Syria was precisely that we have precision weapons. The suggestion that we have not caused any civilian casualties in the past three months is clearly welcome.

I realise that this is only a probing amendment, but I am slightly concerned that the noble Lord suggested that for the quarterly report there should be working definitions of the terms “civilian” and “combatant”. How do the UK Government define those terms? I would hope that it would be something in the glossary, not something that would be redefined every three months. There is a suggestion that perhaps the United States has a rather more generous definition of combatant that we would in the United Kingdom, and that males over the age of 15 are seen as combatants if they are in certain areas. I would very much hope that that is not a definition we would ever consider.

This is a welcome probing amendment, and we would very much like the definitions. My noble friend Lady Jolly has also asked whether the Minister could tell us what work has been done to assemble figures so far.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

The Minister will recall that I asked a Question on this topic two or three weeks ago. I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. There is a danger, when we are concerned with a definition of UK deployment that includes,

“any airstrikes carried out by UK personnel operating manned or unmanned aircraft”,

that we may forget that we are part of a coalition under joint command. It is a joint operation and, in such a situation, we cannot say that we are responsible only for these bombs but not for other bombs dropped by other countries under the same command as ourselves. This country is bound legally and morally by the activities of all those operating in the coalition. We carry that responsibility for the deaths and maiming of civilians, whoever’s bomb it is. Civilians do not care whose bomb it is if they are maimed. If it is under joint command, we have a responsibility.