Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the Bill and will ask the Minister to consider one issue that he has not touched upon today. Before that, I will say how much I look forward to the three maiden speeches that we are to hear, particularly that of my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen, whom I know well from our work in another place. He has a distinguished career. He was chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, as I was, but he also served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I think that we are all aware of his thoughtful and measured comments on most issues, and I am sure that we will hear them today. He has another side that I should perhaps mention. Anybody who has ever been abroad with him will know that he is an absolute shopaholic, and maybe we will see that side come out on some occasions as well.

As I say, I welcome the Bill, as I know will my noble friend on the Front Bench. I am sure that he will continue his style of yesterday and support the Government when they get things right as well as nudging them along in other places. Like my noble friend, I was a Minister in the MoD. Unlike him, I did not have responsibility for veteran affairs or indeed service personnel, although I was always aware of the work that he and fellow Ministers did, and the significant progress that they made, in terms of the care and welfare of our armed service men and women. Significant progress was made in terms of pay, in investing heavily in accommodation, which had been very much neglected for many years, and in helping injured veterans. Improved awareness of these issues during that time laid the foundation for the Armed Forces covenant.

Progress was also made in the 2006 Act, which the Minister referred to, in terms of trying to get clarification on a whole number of issues. I take the point that my noble friend Lord West and indeed the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, made, that there may still be some difficult areas, particularly for personnel who serve on active duty. We need to consider exactly how we can make progress and get the right balance in that area.

As the Minister said, many provisions in the Bill are not controversial, although obviously they will have to be looked at in further detail in Committee, because that is its purpose, and we have to make sure that the detail matches the overall objectives of the Bill.

I will raise one issue that was raised briefly in another place, and on which the Government could make progress without too much difficulty. Obviously, many changes in recent years have affected service personnel. We have seen a reduction in numbers and an increased reliance on reservists and the extra roles that they are supposed to undertake on the front line. But we have also seen some welcome progress, such as the fact that women may now occupy many roles on active service, which is very important and useful and which has been of benefit to our armed services and to the country as a whole. There is still some way to go but progress has been made.

I want to raise with the Minister the report that was carried out by the MoD last year about sexual harassment in the armed services. Obviously, sexual harassment is not just about women, but the report showed that it is a particular problem for women in the armed services, and it came up with some rather worrying statistics. The report recorded that 39% of servicewomen in the Army who had been asked about the issue said that they had received unwelcome comments and attempts to talk about sexual matters, 12% of women in the Armed Forces said that they had experienced unwanted attempts to touch and 10% had experienced attempts to have a sexual relationship. That is clearly not a good situation. There were statistics for men as well, which were also worrying, even though the problem did not seem to be so significant. It was a great breakthrough for the MoD to carry out such a survey and I congratulate those who were involved in doing that.

I recognise that legislation alone and any amendment to the Bill will not simply solve the problem. Increased awareness that behaviour of this kind is not to be tolerated will help. But if there were a requirement to publish statistics on sexual assault and rape, this kind of measuring and monitoring of the problem would help to get us nearer to the zero-tolerance situation that should be the case. I therefore hope that the Minister will consider changing his approach to the Bill. We have to change the culture but if we could have a requirement to monitor the situation, it would help very significantly. I therefore hope that when we come to Committee, the Minister will look favourably on attempts to raise this problem and get it into perspective, and to consider ways we might try to use that report and information to make the situation better in future.

I will say something about one more issue, which is the point raised by my noble friend Lord West on mesothelioma. He was absolutely right to stress the urgency of this issue. I was able to assist our late colleague Lord Lofthouse when he campaigned for miners suffering from pneumoconiosis and the compensation scheme got into difficulties because of the impact of lawyers who tried to jump on the bandwagon of those making claims. That took place over a long period because it was a much slower illness. Mesothelioma is a very rapid illness and is absolutely devastating. Many people have waited a very long time for compensation, which really should be paid on an equitable basis compared with compensation for civilians. I hope that the Minister will look at that issue as well.