Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Bob Russell and Rory Stewart

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

These very important amendments were tabled by the Defence Committee. We shall not press them to a vote, but we want to explain crisply and clearly why we believe them to be very important. They focus above all on four things: the independence, freedom, power and scope of the ombudsman. I shall briefly go through each of the amendments in turn.

The principle on which the Defence Committee has acted is the need to get the balance right with regard to the very particular needs of military law and military discipline, which we accept are completely different from those in the civilian sphere. The kinds of things that soldiers are required to do are quite different from those required by a conventional employer. It is not necessary to lay those differences out in detail, but military discipline and military law have been quite different from civilian law in a series of important respects for 400 years.

It is important that, along with preserving the independence of the military and of military discipline and military law, we ensure that the ombudsman is genuinely trusted and respected. The first ingredient of that is, of course, the ombudsman’s independence and making sure there are no conflicts of interest, which is what the first set of amendments in this group—amendments 24 to 27—seek to ensure. They would make sure that the individual had not been in the military—either in the regular or the reserves—in the previous five years. That conflict of interest is obvious, so it is not worth trying the House’s patience. Put simply, if someone had been a senior general a month before they became the ombudsman, there would be a potential conflict of interest in the relationships they might have developed, so we think that a five year gap is sensible.

The second ingredient, which is in amendment 27, is to push for the term to be non-renewable. That is also about having no conflicts of interest: as the ombudsman do their job, they should not be perpetually thinking about how to get the job again. Our focus is on ensuring that they do the job clearly and crisply, without worrying about whether they will be reappointed—that is independence.

The second set of amendments, Nos. 28 to 32, deals with the freedom of the ombudsman. The Committee is pushing to ensure that the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Council do not put regulations or procedures in the way of the defence ombudsman or the Service Complaints Commissioner for the Armed Forces that prevent them from doing their job. We are trying to ensure that although the Ministry of Defence can set the parameters within which the ombudsman operates, it is not in a position to micromanage individual procedures. We believe that the Ministry of Defence should consult the ombudsman on regulations. Finally, on the question of power, we do not believe that the Ministry of Defence should be able to use confidentiality as a reason for denying access to the ombudsman, except in two particular cases: the personal safety of the individual and national security. Except in those cases, the ombudsman should have the scope to pursue an investigation.

The third conceptual issue for the Committee is about the power of the ombudsman. In amendments 33 to 35, we argue that the ombudsman’s recommendations should be binding on the Defence Council. The final conceptual issue is about scope, and amendment 36 touches on thematic reviews. In other words, should the ombudsman find a systemic issue—say, repeated examples of bullying—it may think it necessary to conduct a thematic review of the broader issues.

The Committee will not press the amendments to a vote because the Government have so far addressed them in a constructive fashion. We very much welcome the fact that they have accepted our major amendment to allow the ombudsman to look not simply at maladministration but at the substance of cases. We note that the Government, in appointing Nicola Williams, have already taken into account in practice many of the recommendations that the Committee wanted. We note that in the contract negotiations with her the Government have already ensured that the ombudsman appointed has not been in the armed forces during the previous five years—in fact, Nicola Williams has never been in the armed forces—which deals with our amendments 24 to 26. We note that the Government have said that the appointment will be non-renewable, which is our amendment 27. In practice, the appointment deals with the conflict of interests problem, and we understand that the Government will set out measures in regulations to deal with our anxieties about freedom, power and scope.

However, the Committee will of course watch the Government’s performance on such issues very carefully. Given that the Government do not want to agree to the amendments, that they assure us we can trust them and say that we should look at the precedent set by the appointment of Nicola Williams, and that they will introduce individual regulations to achieve all the measures that the Committee want, we will watch them very carefully. The Committee reserves the right to reintroduce the amendments, particularly in the Armed Forces Bill to be introduced in the next Parliament, if we believe the Government have reneged on what at the moment appears to be a commitment made in good faith, to ensure that the ombudsman’s principles are upheld.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Select Committee for the way in which he is setting out its views. Will he expand a little more on the concerns expressed in some quarters about the ombudsman not having any military knowledge and experience? How will she address that problem, if it is a problem?

[Rory Stewart]

My hon. Friend raised that central question during the Defence Committee’s pre-appointment hearing. We were very pleased that the Committee had an opportunity to meet Nicola Williams and to conduct a pre-appointment hearing with her. We focused very heavily on whether, without military experience, she would feel comfortable in the role. We were very impressed by Nicola Williams. Her arguments and explanations were extremely convincing, she displayed real independence in her role in the Cayman Islands, and she seemed to have the right balance of independence and respect for the institution. We were very happy, as a Committee, to approve her appointment.

To conclude, this matter is very important to the Defence Committee. We are not conventionally a Committee that looks at legislation. The nature of our work is not usually to scrutinise individual Bills, because a great deal of the work of the Ministry of Defence is not connected with legislation. However, we feel that it is very important in the setting up of the ombudsman that Parliament, and the Defence Committee in particular, is carefully involved.

We accept that it is a step in the right direction that the post of ombudsman has gone from thee days a week to a full-time job, and from having five employees to having more than 20. We accept that it is a good move that the Defence Committee has the power to hold an appointment hearing on the ombudsman. We also think it is good that the Government have accepted amendments from the Defence Committee. Aside from the inherent merits of those amendments, it is simply good procedure that in setting up an ombudsman, the Executive listen to the legislative branch and give Parliament and the Defence Committee the chance to influence the procedure. The ombudsman will have trust only if they bring not just the Ministry of Defence but Parliament, the public and institutions such as the Defence Committee with them. On those grounds, I move the amendment, but will not press it to a vote.

Defence and Security Review (NATO)

Debate between Bob Russell and Rory Stewart

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

That provides me with a good way to drive towards a conclusion. As my hon. Friend has just pointed out, the kind of threats that Russia or Putin can bring will be very unpredictable. I will be humiliated by what Putin does over the next five to 10 years. It is very difficult to guess what he will do next. What is clear about Putin is that he has been thinking very hard, since at least 2008, about how to unsettle or unbalance NATO. He will be pulling levers and pushing buttons that we cannot yet anticipate.

I imagine that he will be tempted to do things in relation to Iran—perhaps in relation to the Iranian nuclear negotiations. We have already seen Putin’s very direct contribution to the civil war in Syria through the protection of Bashar al-Assad. We can see his control over the gas supplies in Bulgaria. It is not very difficult for us to imagine how he could cause trouble in Narva, or how he could put a few Spetsnaz troops in a forest in Latvia, just sit them there and wait to see what we do. If we are dealing with threats along that arc, we need to change the way we think in the Ministry of Defence. We cannot rest in the comfortable world we have been in for the past 20 years—imagining that we will have a neat deployment of 6,600 soldiers on an expeditionary warfare campaign, that they will stay there for five to 10 years doing stabilisation operations and then come home. We will have to respond to very nuanced, ambiguous and unpredictable attacks all the way along an arc between the Baltic and, potentially, Iran. In order to do that, we need to invest very heavily in Russian language expertise, defence engagement, and defence attachés in all those countries. The United States currently has three defence attachés in each Baltic state; we have one defence attaché covering three Baltic states. That is not enough.

The Ministry of Defence would not be able tell us whether the defences in Mariupol were adequate to deal with a Russian advance because the defence attaché currently in Kiev is not permitted to travel up to the front line. We need to invest in defence intelligence staff in the Foreign Office. To do that—this is what I will conclude on—we must make this investment of 2% of GDP in defence. We need to do that for many, many reasons.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I do not want the Chair of the Select Committee to ignore one part of the world. With regard to all the countries that he has mentioned we can act as part of the NATO family, but what about the Falklands? He will be aware that Argentina has not given up its ambitions, but who will support us down in the South Atlantic?

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very significant question. It is definitely worth thinking about in the next SDSR. As the hon. Gentleman points out, many of our assumptions are based on the fact that we will operate with the US coalition, but in relation to the Falklands we cannot be so confident that that will happen.