LGBT Veterans Independent Review

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

Yes, the front door will remain open, but a stakeholder pack will also be sent to all organisations that we know are interested, urging them to socialise it, which is vital. I cannot emphasise enough that it is vital that those who believe they are eligible for some restorative action—in the first instance, non-financial—should register their interest. In doing so, they are able to register or flag the fact that they may be interested in a financial award as well. Unless we have that data, I think our job of determining what the scheme ultimately looks like will be very difficult, and the sooner we get a handle on that, the sooner we can start to get money out of the door.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

This is an issue I raised many times over the five years that I was the armed forces spokesperson for the SNP, so I very much welcome Lord Etherton’s review, and I pay tribute to Caroline and Craig at Fighting With Pride. We have mentioned the spurious reasons for which many LGBT veterans were dismissed. Of course, the other thing is that the colleagues they served with were encouraged to report their supposed misdemeanours. I do think one of the difficulties for the Government will be tracking down all those who have been affected and impacted by this, but it will not just be in their own records. I am sure there must be things in other people’s records that can be tied into this as well.

I want to mention the £50 million. I have done a quick sum, and if the 1,120 people who responded each got a share, it would be £44,000 each, which is an absolute pittance for a lost career, a lost pension, loss of earnings and the loss of a reference to go on to a new career outside the armed forces. We really have to look at that £50 million figure, which does not even touch the surface.

[Dr Murrison]

The Canadian scheme offered sums ranging from 100,000 Canadian dollars to 5,000 Canadian dollars depending on what happened. It was tiered in a way that gave a range of awards depending on the experience evidenced, and it was evidenced. It is more difficult when we come to a scheme where evidence is difficult to come by. I think the hon. Member would accept that, for some of the higher level awards, we do have to have some form of evidence that people were forcibly ejected from the armed forces. Now, £50 million is a great deal of money. It is a recommendation in the Etherton report, which we have accepted. We will use that as our guiding star in designing the scheme that we have in mind for financial awards. I am not going to promise her or indeed give her any hope that we will breach the £50 million. It is the Government’s intent that we should stick at that figure.

Ukraine

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Lady should be careful about what she reads in the press. We have been consistent in our support for the armed forces. I am grateful for the shadow Secretary of State’s support for what the Government are trying to achieve in Ukraine, but it is a pity that Opposition Members are sometimes not similarly supportive of the men and women of our armed forces and defence in the UK.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

What estimate has the Minister made of the number of Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped by Russian forces? What support has been offered to Ukrainian forces to return those children to their parents?

[Dr Murrison]

The removal of children from Ukraine to Russia is truly shocking and heartrending. The best we can hope for is that Putin sees the reputational damage that it delivers to him and his country and reverses his policy. We have seen some indication in recent times of some children being returned to their parents. It is a truly shocking element of a truly horrendous conflict, and we know precisely who to blame for it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I agree, but I do not think the response to Ukraine is the totality of the UK’s foreign policy on Russia. Russia is a challenge not only across the European continent but beyond. My right hon. Friend is right that Russia is using grain as a weapon and as leverage across the global south, so the UK must seek to address Russia’s malign activity globally while continuing to do everything we are doing to ensure that the war in Ukraine ends on terms acceptable to President Zelensky.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

6. What recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the rise in the cost of living on armed forces personnel.

[The Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

The Ministry of Defence has introduced a series of measures to support our people to cope with the cost of living, including: implementing the independent Armed Forces Pay Review Body’s 2022 pay award recommendations in full; capping subsidised accommodation charges at 1%; freezing food charges; and increasing travel allowances by 7%. More than 32,000 service personnel have received a £150 contribution in lieu of the council tax rebate, families can save around £3,400 per child per year through our wraparound childcare, and our people in service family accommodation are receiving a £400 non-repayable discount to help with energy costs.

[Carol Monaghan]

I thank the Minister for his response, but nearly 3,000 personnel are already claiming universal credit, and food and heating costs are soaring for everyone. In addition to what he has already said, what discussions is he having with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that all personnel who are entitled to claim universal credit are doing so? What discussions is he having with the Treasury to ensure that personnel are further supported where required?

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Lady will know that universal credit is an in-work benefit and is dependent on income, family size, type of accommodation and a raft of other issues. She will probably be interested to know about the further investment we are putting into family accommodation, which will help with many of the problems that have been reported to me in relation to heating and the cost of energy, especially through insulation. I suspect her constituents will probably be most appreciative of that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend is right about this. Not recruiting is bad, but recruiting and then not retaining is even worse, for very obvious reasons. Defence recognises the need to improve matters, both for the regulars and the reserves, where the issue of inflow and outflow is pretty much the same. I have already this afternoon outlined a range of measures that are being put in place to improve retention, and I look forward very much to the Haythornthwaite review for incentivisation that we expect in the spring.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The very youngest recruits into the armed forces, the 16 and 17-year-olds, will attend the Army Foundation College in Harrogate. However, there have been very concerning reports that an instructor at the college has been charged with more than 20 offences, including at least five sexual assaults against 16-year-old girls. Can the Minister detail to Members here today how these young recruits will be properly safeguarded at the college?

[Mr Speaker]

I am just a little bit concerned about this. If somebody has been charged, we should not be mentioning them. It could be sub judice.

[Carol Monaghan]

The issue of safeguarding?

Draft Armed Forces (Covenant) Regulations 2022 Draft Armed Forces (Service Court Rules) (Amendment) (No. 2) Rules 2022

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 General Committees

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to see you in your place, Ms Bardell.

I welcome the Minister to her first statutory instrument Committee on the Front Bench. I hope that the Prime Minister was listening to her speech because, having sat through an enormous number of statutory instrument Committees since I was elected in 2017, it is good to hear a Minister on top of their brief and able to speak beyond the words given to them by officials. That is welcome, and I hope that the Minister stays in her place if any reshuffle comes her way. At a time of such severe international difficulties, we need good people who know our military and can make good decisions.

Labour will oppose neither of the draft statutory instruments. They both move in the right direction. However, I have a few questions and a few points to make. A number of Opposition colleagues have participated in the armed forces parliamentary scheme, as I know have Government Members, which gives parliamentarians an opportunity to look at service life. Indeed, I have just returned from Estonia, where I saw the amazing work of the King’s Royal Hussars and 2 Rifles in defending our allies there. We need to make sure that the systems put in place are suitable for not only service personnel but, importantly, their families. I know that the Minister has an interest in defence families, which is a fresh injection into the way the Ministry of Defence works, and I wish her the best of luck with that. I will ask a few questions about defence families, but I encourage the Minister and all parliamentarians to fully participate in that scheme if possible.

The AFPS could benefit from a slight tweak. At the moment, the three basic courses do not include a module on defence justice. Given the important role that defence justice plays for our service personnel and the confidence that we must have in defence justice, the ability for parliamentarians to have a passing understanding of how the defence justice system differs from the civilian system and why there is a difference would not only aid Committees such as this in scrutinising legislation, but would help us to understand daily service life.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I thought the hon. Member was going to add the experience of women. Although the Minister has done a huge amount of work on the issue, that would be another useful addition to the parliamentary scheme, so that parliamentarians could sit down and hear, behind closed doors, the true lived experience of women in the armed forces.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I agree. It is quite refreshing to see the freedom that service personnel have to speak to parliamentarians on visits, and experiences of sexual violence within the forces, which the Minister will know about from her time on the Defence Committee, are very relevant to what we are discussing today.

I will first talk about the covenant regulations and then move on to service justice. We need to recognise that it is not just our service personnel, their families and people who have served in the past who need to have a robust armed forces covenant that is as effective as possible. Across the country, there are some locations—Plymouth is one—that do the armed forces covenant very well. There are other locations where the armed forces covenant sits gathering dust on a shelf, and the ability to make sure it is truly implemented and lived is a challenge that still has not been fully met.

I would like the Minister to consider important ways in which the covenant could be strengthened. One of those is the extension of the covenant beyond education, healthcare and housing to include other areas of central Government activity—employment, social care, pensions, compensation and benefits, to name but a few. Our service personnel, veterans and their families should not incur unfair disadvantage in any walk of life, and the importance of the armed forces covenant as a principle needs to be extended to all public bodies.

There is a second area where this SI could seek to go a little further. Despite the Minister mentioning the 2023 review of the covenant, there are still no plans for the covenant to apply to central Government, including the Ministry of Defence itself. It is worth taking a moment to consider that omission. If the armed forces covenant is to be real, and if service personnel, their families and veterans are to have confidence in it, the Ministry of Defence must lead by example. I would like to see Ministers, including the Minister here today, put more effort into making sure that happens.

A whole host of service charities, including the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes and the Confederation of Service Charities, have expressed concern that central Government do not have a duty under the covenant. In terms of the duties under the covenant, it is fine for this place to put additional responsibilities on local government—which has a lot of responsibilities already, but not the resources to go with them—but the Government need to walk the walk if they are to talk the talk, and that means applying these duties to central Government as well. This is not a small point. National Government oversee many policy areas that service personnel experience difficulties with, so they should have clear, measurable duties under the covenant to deliver for personnel, their families and veterans.

Satisfaction with service life has dropped below 50%, according to the Government’s own figures, which should worry Members on both sides of the House. I seek not to make a party political point; we need to make sure that we increase morale among our armed forces personnel if we are to retain their skills and experience, and honour our obligations as, in effect, employers. There are still clear failings when it comes to housing, healthcare, social care and other issues.

As we approach Remembrance week, attention will naturally turn to how the covenant is implemented, and rightly so. As parliamentarians, we should not only ask questions publicly, but challenge constructively in private and ask when it will apply and whether the 2023 review of the covenant will include consideration of its greater applicability to central Government. I am afraid 2023 is already too late.

Let me turn to the draft Armed Forces (Service Court Rules) (Amendment) (No. 2) Rules 2022. The Minister will know, because she and I have spoken about this many times, that the Labour party stands four-square with our armed forces and backs the Government’s effort in Ukraine to support our NATO allies, but we do need to make sure that we get all aspects of service life right. Although the rules are a step in the right direction, I have some questions about how we can make sure that they are delivered appropriately.

It is entirely sensible to introduce the overriding objective that the Minister has set out for courts martial and to give the Director of Service Prosecutions responsibility for warning prosecution witnesses of trial dates. Those were pragmatic recommendations from the Lyons review, which we welcome.

Likewise, it is welcome that the statutory instrument will ensure that there is at least one woman on the board of each court martial in circumstances where there are lay members on the court. A normal board will have between three and seven people, so it is a step in the right direction to have one woman there, but I would like to have a greater sense that we are moving towards balance. We need to see more women in our armed forces full stop, but the explanatory memorandum could have shown a greater sense of the direction of travel that Ministers wish to take. I would be uncomfortable with the idea that it is good enough that there is a woman on the board and that some additional women may, although not necessarily, be provided by the shuffle that the Minister explained. We need a sense of the direction of travel.

I encourage the Minister, in the implementation of the SI, to look at how the language can be tweaked to make sure we have greater representation, which is particularly important when the board considers cases that include servicewomen or situations in which a servicewoman has been affected as a victim. The lived experience of the people who are judging someone and making decisions on their career and on prosecution should have an element of familiarity with the experiences of either the person on trial or the witnesses and victims.

Some Government statements on upholding military justice are still more rhetoric than reality. I wish to put on the record the Government’s rejection of the headline recommendation of the Lyons review that murder, manslaughter and rape should be prosecuted in civilian rather than military courts when the offences are committed in the UK, with the Attorney General able to rule otherwise in exceptional cases.

It is a shame that the Government have chosen not to adopt fully the proposal—the headline recommendation—but it is more than disappointing, because the Minister may not have listened to her own recommendations. I do not wish to embarrass her, but last year she co-authored a Defence Committee report on women in the armed forces that argued that the Government should remove court martial jurisdiction over cases of rape and cases of sexual assault with penetration, as well as for cases of domestic violence and child abuse. I know the Minister has been in post for only a short time, but I encourage her to continue to provide challenge within the Ministry of Defence in respect of why the full recommendation was not included in the statutory instruments before us and on how quickly the change will come. Will she set out whether any work on that is in train in the Ministry of Defence?

There is a litany of reasons why this issue is important, including serious backlogs, investigators missing obvious lines of inquiry and the unnecessary retraumatisation of victims. Let me give the Committee two examples taken from the written evidence submitted by the Centre for Military Justice to the Defence Committee inquiry on women in the armed forces. In one case in which a servicewoman reported an alleged sexual assault, the Service Prosecuting Authority accidentally revealed the victim’s home address to the alleged assailant by sending to the alleged perpetrator a letter intended for the victim. That is clearly unacceptable. In another case, where a servicewoman reported sexual assault, court martial transcripts show that a judge advocate remarked of the

“quite appallingly bad police investigation…how stupid was it not to interview the people who were at the scene”.

There is still work to be done, and I encourage the Minister to look at whether that recommendation can be brought back.

It is unsurprising that the recent service justice system policing review said:

“The Service Police do not investigate enough serious crime to be considered proficient”.

That makes a clear distinction between service policing and the civilian role. We must understand the particular demands, stresses and secrecy that may apply in a military environment, and have examples of where that should not apply and where the expertise and familiarity of civilian policing could produce better results for victims and greater confidence in the justice system. The numbers speak for themselves. Ministry of Defence figures show that from 2015 to 2020, the conviction rate for rape cases tried under courts martial was just 9%. Recent data shows that the conviction rate was 59% for similar cases that reached a civilian court. We know that prosecution rates for rape are far too low in civilian courts, but that comparison shows a problem.

I would be grateful if the Minister answered a number of questions. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent made a point about the explanatory memorandum. I am afraid that if the Minister is to serve on Delegated Legislation Committees with me, she will need to know that I, too, read the explanatory memorandums quite closely. I am interested in why the territorial extent of the regulations includes United Kingdom overseas territories but not Gibraltar. Considering the large UK military presence in Gibraltar, why is that particular overseas territory excluded from the regulations? Are the provisions replicated elsewhere, or is a separate statutory instrument needed to deal with Gibraltar’s specific legal jurisdiction?

I am not a fan in impact assessments of the phrase

“no, or no significant, impact”

because I believe that those are two very different things. I know that it is not the Minister’s fault, and that officials who write such explanatory memorandums must use the house style, but there is a difference between no impact and no significant impact. When looking at the impact of any SI, it is unhelpful to have those blurred together.

My final question is about the quite helpful expansion of what a “family member” means in the SI. As someone who believes that families should be at the heart of our community but that we should not specify what a family is because each of our families is different and each is loved by the people within them, I was interested to see how the Government have laid out what a family is and what a relation is. When a service person has a foster child, or when there is one in a defence family, I think that would be included within the broader remit, but I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed it for the record.

May I politely challenge the use of the language

“of the full blood or of the half blood or by marriage”

in the Bill? There is language that, as parliamentarians, we should encourage movement away from. When we talk about the “full blood” or the “half blood”, it suggests that some children have a legitimacy that is different from that of adopted children, for instance. I encourage the Minister to look at whether in future SIs that type of language can be retired.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carol Monaghan]

I congratulate the Minister on her role. All of us who have had interactions with her over the last few years know that her appointment is well deserved, and we look forward to working with her in her new position.

We have discussed many times in similar debates the fact that the covenant remains very much a statement of intention without the required statutory teeth, and it is difficult to see how the regulations will change that. The big issues in the regulations are housing, education and healthcare, and I will say a couple of words about them. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has just spoken about the changing nature of service families. Bearing in mind that we are looking at the principle of “no disadvantage”, there must also be some recognition that service families are not necessarily wives, that they are not necessarily at home looking after children, and that they are not necessarily in service accommodation. Often, they are living in their communities, and often they are husbands, partners or whatever else—there can be many different iterations of the new modern family. Sometimes, that is not captured when we look at the principle of “no disadvantage” and how we can support those families in a different environment.

I want to make a small point on education. For the last few years, Glasgow schools—I speak about them because I am a Glasgow MP, but others may know of this happening elsewhere—have asked on registration forms for an indication of whether parents are serving personnel or veterans. That is really important and allows schools to put different accommodation in place where required. I think that would be a really simple addition to schools that would not require a huge amount of funding, but would allow these families to be identified more effectively.

The Minister said that there would be no requirement for additional funding as a result of the regulations. We had a lot of discussion about this a number of years ago. If we are asking local authorities to put in place more accommodation—not just housing, but more recognition of what service personnel and their families require—there has to be a financial element. We cannot just expect local authorities that are already struggling to pick up all the slack. That is particularly the case for local authorities that are close to bases, where a lot of service personnel will move into and out of the local area. It would be useful for the Minister to say something in her response about funding for local authorities.

Many issues are not covered by the regulations. They do not cover pay or how personnel can campaign on pay-related issues. There is nothing about providing proper representation for serving personnel, in the way that many of our NATO allies do. Importantly, personnel in certain countries are able to express concerns outwith their chain of command, so that it does not cause problems for them. It would be good to see how we are going to put in place such an opportunity for service personnel, if we do not have proper representation for them.

It is good that LGBT veterans are now able to respond to the independent review. I encourage the Minister and the Government to listen carefully and to respond quickly, because for many decades many of those veterans have been living with the result of what happened to them. They need some resolution. We know that there is an issue to be dealt with quickly.

I also want to mention accommodation and housing, in particular for veterans. Many veterans have additional needs because of their service, including disability. I mention the work of the Scottish Government in mitigating the bedroom tax: if veterans need an additional room for equipment they require, they are not expected to shell out additional money. It would be good to hear whether the Minister is to take any action to replicate the work of the Scottish Government.

Moving to service justice, the SNP’s position is that serious cases of sexual assault, rape or gender-based violence should be processed and tried in civilian courts, rather than in the service justice system. The Minister spoke about the representation of women on the court martial boards, but a minimum of one woman is not enough. There has to be far greater representation if we are looking at the issue.

The Centre for Military Justice gave some evidence to the Defence Committee stating that the outcomes of rape and other sexual assault cases heard in military courts are much lower compared with civilian courts. The then Secretaries of State for Home Affairs and for Justice—the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland)—both talked about how they were deeply ashamed of the rape conviction rate. The Minister has spoken up extensively on behalf of women personnel, but it would be good to hear of some strengthening and of such cases being heard in civilian courts, rather than military courts.

To give some figures, of 48 rape trials at court martial in 2017, only two resulted in a conviction. In 2018, the number of rape cases fell dramatically, and I think we can understand why when the conviction rate is so low: there were only 10 cases, resulting in just three convictions. In 2019, 15 cases resulted in only three convictions.

That is not good enough, and the signal it gives to female personnel is not the message that we should be giving. We should be saying: “We will listen to this case. It will be heard fairly.” It should not only be heard, but investigated first of all by people with expertise—particular expertise of dealing with rape or sexual abuse. Having that specific expertise goes beyond what we can expect of military police and investigators in the military to have; it has to be done by the professionals who have such expertise.

Accused service members going through a court martial are allowed to introduce evidence of their good character. If I were the victim and hearing evidence of the accused’s good character, it would sound to me as if that somehow negated their poor behaviour. We have to be careful about the messages. In short, we seem to be saying: “If you are an excellent soldier, it doesn’t matter so much if you are a violent felon.”

I would also like to hear a bit about child recruits aged 16 and 17. According to MOD figures, 22 such recruits at the Army Foundation College were victims of sexual abuse last year. What has been done about that and to ensure that child protections and safeguarding are in place for youngsters?

Both SIs are steps in the right direction, but what sort of evaluation has the Minister planned? Will action be taken as a result of increased numbers of rape trials, for example? People need to understand that there will be a more effective system in place. Finally, I know that the Minister has the interests of personnel—particularly female personnel—at heart, and I look forward to working with her over the next few years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Atherton]

I am sorry, Ms Bardell. We have a newly appointed provost marshal. I am very keen for victims to be at the centre of all the policies as our service families go forward.

[Carol Monaghan]

It is good to hear that accusations of rape can be taken out of the chain of command, but who will victims be able to raise their concerns with? Will that particular person be properly trained to deal with crimes of that nature?

[Sarah Atherton]

If there is an allegation of rape, the service personnel can now go to the civilian police; granted, it does not happen that often, because of the institution of the MOD, but they can and do have that option now. The list I gave is all about training the service police and the investigators about what to do properly. A lot of these policies and procedures in the service justice system are now aligned with the civilian justice system, which we hope will increase and maintain the speciality of serving police.

[Carol Monaghan]

I thank the Minister for that, but I will push her a little further. In the civilian police, there are people specifically trained to deal with such allegations; they do not deal with a wide range of allegations. It would be useful to know that that is the same in the military; that there are people specifically trained to deal only with these types of allegations, and that people would interact with somebody who has that expertise.

[Sarah Atherton]

There is already a system in place. Victim officers are assigned to cases such as this, but I identified in my report the fact that sometimes they were good and sometimes they were not; there was a training programme to ensure that everyone reached an acceptable level. They are assigned someone to help them through the process.

Draft Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2022

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 General Committees

[Luke Pollard]

Indeed. What is the expectation about energy use in the MOD? I suggest to the Minister that now might be a good time for the MOD and the Treasury to get together to look at whether single-year spending cycles are right for investment in the MOD—I do not think they are—and to see whether now is the time for proper green energy investment, especially in the many south-facing MOD-owned roofs on the defence estate, so that we can start offsetting some of the energy use involved in our armed forces. If we were to make the case that every solar panel on our roofs is one less tank that Putin can put into the field, because energy use that draws gas from Russia fuels his regime, that would be a strong signal, and something that could not only save the MOD money, but strategically benefit the country.

The procurement of our armed forces is another area that needs addressing, because it is something that wastes enormous amounts of money that could be better spent. Since 2010, the Government have wasted £15 billion of taxpayers’ money through mismanagement of defence procurement programmes, with £5 billion of this wasted since 2019 when the current Secretary of State for Defence took his post. Defence Ministers have no systematic plans to fix the broken military procurement system, which the Public Accounts Committee describes as,

“broken and repeatedly wasting…money”.

This risks our frontline forces going without the kit and equipment they need to fight, and risks our ability to field full-strength units. There are real questions to be asked about this at the heart of the Government’s incredibly poorly handled Ajax programme. We ask these questions because we want the armed forces to have the best equipment, and for it to be delivered on time with the capabilities that they ordered. However, increasingly with some of those large programmes, the equipment is delivered late and in a poor condition, which, as we have seen with Ajax, could potentially be dangerous to our soldiers through hearing loss, vibration problems and other issues. The UK’s defence industry is incredibly important, and standing next to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney today, who represents a constituency where defence manufacturing is very important, it is worth saying that we want to see this got right, because there are jobs, as well as national security, on the line.

A new threshold is needed for equipment to be sourced inside the UK, requiring proof that defence projects can be built under similar terms in Britain, because far too many of our defence contracts are being sent abroad. The fleet solid support ship is a good example—that entire ship to supply our Royal Navy should be built in Britain using British steel. A fleet solid support ship whose parts are bought from foreign yards and made from foreign steel, only to be assembled in the UK, is not a ship properly built in Britain. That means we are leaking jobs, tax revenues and skills from our shipyards. Ministers should reflect on the procurement process to make sure that all our Royal Navy ships—our Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships—are built in Britain.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about procurement and building the support ships here in the UK. Does he also agree that rather than working on year-to-year budgets, it would be more reasonable to work with much longer defence budgets, maybe covering five to 10 years, so that we could include the economic multipliers he talks about?

[Luke Pollard]

The hon. Lady raises a good question about the spending strategy. One reason the Treasury is so reluctant to give the Ministry of Defence a longer running budget is that it has constantly demonstrated its inability to manage those budgets. There is a balance to be struck between longer budgets that enable projects to spend wisely, especially when coming to the end of an accounting period, and processes that ensure grip on total procurement. The hon. Lady sets out a good argument. I know Defence Ministers would like that as well, but their friends in the Treasury might not be so supportive. Such a change would be useful on a cross-party basis to those who have an interest in defence, because annual spending cycles build in waste towards the end of that cycle. We need to look at the current system because it does not drive efficiency in the manner for which we should be asking. Labour would make the Ministry of Defence the first Department subject to its proposed office for value for money’s tough spending regime and commission the National Audit Office to conduct a comprehensive audit of MOD waste to deal with that problem.

In conclusion, Labour backs our armed forces, in opposition as we did in Government, and as we will do again. There has been much cross-party agreement in recent months about our military, our armed forces and Britain’s important place in the world, but it is the job of the Opposition to inquire and scrutinise. There are big improvements still to be made in the culture, efficiency and approach of not only the Ministry of Defence, but sometimes our armed forces as well. I hope the Minister will recognise that I ask these questions from a position of pride in our armed forces. Indeed, I am proud to come from a military family and proud to represent a military city.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, Labour will support the draft order today, but I would be grateful if the Minister provided an update on the issues I have raised.

[Carol Monaghan]

I intend to be brief. I echo many of the points raised by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. It is a pleasure to follow him and the Minister, and I reiterate the SNP’s commitment to and support for those who are serving. When we state our support for personnel in uniform and for veterans, we must not forget that there are some issues of concern and it is important that we, as elected representatives, raise them. Indeed, we have spoken about some of them extensively in this place over the past few years.

We are committed to the ongoing delivery of defence, but we have to look more carefully at the experience of, for example, women in the armed forces, a cause that has been taken up so effectively by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton). She is not here, but we all know how much work she has done on that issue and it is good that we are now able to have such conversations, which probably would have been a lot more difficult a few years ago.

We still have an issue with LGBT veterans. I know the Minister has made a commitment to look at that, but there has not been any shift in the outcome for those veterans. I hope the Minister remains in his place in the new Government, and it would be good to have a commitment that those LGBT veterans will see some movement in their situation.

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Glasgow Helping Heroes, a Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association organisation, not in my own constituency but just across the Clyde, right next to the BAE Systems yard that is building our Type 26 frigates as we speak. If hon. Members have not been up to see those frigates, I urge them to do so as they are quite impressive. The organisation raised a number of problems, most of which could be dealt with a small amount of money.

When we reiterate our commitment to the armed forces, we must also maintain our commitment to those retired personnel who have issues. We know they are a minority, but a safety net must be there to deal with them and it should not be up to charities to do that by poking about, trying to get a little bit of funding here and there. They tell me that they have staff dedicated just to trying to get funding to keep their current work going. That is not good enough for those who have served.

I finish by asking about housing, which is an issue that I raise regularly in the Chamber. Housing and accommodation standards, including for families, have not moved on much at all. We still get an awful lot of correspondence about the poor quality that families are expected to put up with. We need a more ambitious programme of housing. We also must look at how personnel who are still serving are able to get on the housing ladder and have their families in their own accommodation. It is not good enough that, after 10 or 20 years’ service, personnel find themselves struggling even to get a council house. I hope that that would have cross-party support. Let us get things right not just for those who serve, but for the families of those who serve. I should declare my usual interest: having been in one of those families, I understand some of the issues that the families experience.

I thank the Minister for his comments this morning, and I reiterate our support for the Armed Forces Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Leo Docherty]

That is an extremely good question. The Defence Secretary touched on some of those broader issues in his statement on Ukraine yesterday. If we are frank with ourselves and look back to the period in the early 2000s, all western countries were perhaps overly optimistic in their desire to re-engage with Russia. It may be our collective failure, but we will be measured by our agility and our resolve in responding to the Russian threat. That has been central to our doctrine even before the invasion of Ukraine, and we will be measured by the resolve that we now show in responding—not just in a military way, but in terms of our collective ability to counter the energy war that Putin is now waging upon the west.

[Carol Monaghan]

I want to bring the Minister back to his comments about women in the armed forces. Sadly, I was not at all surprised at the reports we saw a couple of weeks ago about the Red Arrows, and that is a pretty poor reflection of where we are. Especially since we read the report from the hon. Member for Wrexham, there has been an indication of how widespread that is. We know that units will take the lead from commanding officers, and we know that the culture is set by those who lead. What work has been done—not in terms of equality and diversity training, because I know that takes place—in really changing the culture, particularly among officers, because then the personnel will follow?

[Leo Docherty]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. It is not just about broad institutional change; it is about ensuring that it is instilled in the leadership training, and that is now being done. For example, all leadership training at Sandhurst instils the absolute necessity of ensuring women can thrive in the workplace into the leadership style. Those who lead have a duty to set the example. This is a cultural shift, and it is encouraging that once the culture changes at the top of the armed forces it can have a rapid multiplier effect. I have been amazed at how fast change does take place. For example, if someone visits an infantry battalion, they will meet young female platoon commanders, which would have been completely unthinkable 20 years ago when I commissioned. More than 50% of those serving in the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery are young women, including the commanding officer, so change can happen very quickly, and that is absolutely right. It is a leadership function, and we are addressing that by ensuring that it is part of the training at the very top.

I will cover off the other points raised by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. As the Member of Parliament for the home of the British Army in Aldershot, I take the basing strategy personally. Delays in closures and attendant accommodation issues are extremely important for our service personnel. I am pleased to commit the MDP to writing with an update because that is his bailiwick and it is also extremely important.

[Leo Docherty]

I was going to come to Ajax, but I will cover the points off in sequence. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport made a good point about energy bills. We are striving to be lethal yet green. I know that the permanent secretary is leading a huge amount of work on ways that we can better utilise our estates to capture solar energy and so on. We take that seriously because our energy bill is very significant.

Ajax is, again, an MDP lead, but I will say simply that further updates will come, as we have said all along. However, we will not accept a vehicle that is not fit for purpose. The resolve and integrity of the Defence Secretary and the MDP on that is unquestionable.

The hon. Gentleman made some good points about a multi-year settlement. Of course, we are grateful to have had a multi-year settlement up until 2024, and the £24 billion uplift under the previous Prime Minister.

I will cover off the last few remaining points. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West commended my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham, for whose work I am grateful. We are doing a whole range of work to get after some of those issues, and we will provide updates to colleagues in due course as we move through the autumn.

Lord Etherton’s review of the experience of LGBT veterans is underway. He is a highly credible Member of the other place and a former Master of the Rolls, and he has started the independent review in good order, so the Member for Glasgow North West should look forward to further updates from it.

[Carol Monaghan]

Does the Minister have a timescale for the review?

British Special Forces in Afghanistan: New Allegations

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The overwhelming majority of those who serve in the armed forces do so with honour and courage, and we are rightly proud of their service, but by defending or failing to investigate properly the bad eggs that exist we tarnish everyone’s reputation. The “Panorama” programme should concern us all, especially since these accounts were given by those within the armed forces themselves. The documentary described “kill or capture” night raids, the systematic killing of detainees and unarmed civilians, planted weapons, competitions between squadrons on the numbers killed, and cover-ups by senior officers. If senior officers knew of such behaviour, why was no action taken? If they did not know, why not?

The Ministry of Defence has so far treated the allegations with some flippancy, saying the documentary “jumps to unjustified conclusions”. The House needs an assurance that the review of this material will be carried out by an independent investigator. Flaws in the investigatory process and potential cover-ups by senior officers should be included. There must be democratic oversight of our special forces, and I would appreciate the Minister’s reassurance that this is something he is considering. Finally, how is the MOD investigating failures in the chain of command?

[Mr Speaker]

Can I remind Members that there are set times for urgent questions? The SNP has one minute, but that was over one and a half minutes. If I am going to grant urgent questions, Members know the rules and they have to stick to the rules. Please can you all take that on board?

Ukraine Update

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The first lesson, “Don’t take Russia at its word; take it on its action”, is the most important lesson for many in the international community. We gave up on that a long time ago, but that is the first thing. There will be a lot of lessons. I would not rush into that, because we also need to learn from the Ukrainians, who are rightly focused on fighting rather than on a feedback loop to us, which will be essential in understanding it.

The big lesson is that we must prove to the world that ripping up international law and being more brutal than an adversary still does not get someone to win. One calculation that President Putin and his generals have is, “We don’t care about human life; we don’t care about international law; and if we just maintain that, somehow, we’ll achieve victory—irrespective of the cost and the human suffering.” The international community has to be totally unified in demonstrating that as folly.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his update on the deployment of UK personnel along NATO’s eastern flank. Can he detail what role they are playing in the humanitarian response, including supporting the processing of visas for Ukrainian refugees? Alongside all the military equipment, is the UK looking at delivering potassium iodide to civilians in Ukraine?

[Mr Wallace]

On medical supplies, my right hon. Friend the Health and Social Care Secretary has provided significant amounts of health stocks, but I am happy to look at that further for the hon. Lady. On the issue of visas, we have offered and we have fulfilled any request from the Home Office. If it asks for more, it will get more, if that is what is required to speed up the process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I certainly do. NATO has been the absolute cornerstone of Euro-Atlantic security since the end of the second world war, and long may it continue to be so. Neither the JEF, the EU nor anything else should be seen as an alternative. However, there is a market for complementary organisations such as the JEF, which do not require consensus. The JEF is absolutely showing its value in the way that it is being used at the moment.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The veterans strategy action plan includes a commitment to address the historical hurt or disadvantage that sections of the veteran community have experienced. Will that include compensation for LGBT veterans?

[Leo Docherty]

I look forward to announcing further progress on the review in due course. I do not want to pre-empt the terms and conditions of the chair, but I think that they will be reassuringly broad.

War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme Payments

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) on securing this important debate. I think that most of us who have spoken this evening understand that the system needs some reformation.

It is of course at times like these, when we see the desperate scenes of the war in Ukraine, that we realise that conflict is never very far away. I wish to pay tribute to the efforts of our armed forces, in the knowledge that military service does not come without cost. It can mean life-changing injuries, it can mean complex mental health issues, and it can, sadly, lead to death. It is for that very reason that the war pensions and armed forces compensation schemes exist. The state has an undeniable responsibility to care for those who have protected it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian made clear when he said that the burden of the harm should be carried by the state and not by the veteran. Providing compensation is the very least we can do for those who have given so much.

My hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) highlighted the issues experienced by her constituent, whose son sadly took his life. She also talked about the Scottish Veterans Fund, which the Scottish Government have set up. This is an important commitment to the health and wellbeing of our veteran community. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) said that he found it extraordinary that charities were still filling in the gaps where the UK Government were missing. He never misses an opportunity to talk about the armed forces representative body. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) described it as a union, but with the specific difference that members of this body would not have the ability to strike that we see in many other countries. In that respect, it would be much more like the Police Federation. It would, however, allow members of the serving and veteran communities to raise issues, although not through their superiors or those in their immediate line of duty.

The hon. Member for Strangford talked about his pride in the armed forces community, but he also talked about post-traumatic stress disorder and how it could be escalated by the scenes that we are seeing in Ukraine. We have to be aware of the fact that re-traumatisation can happen, and it can be caused by the processes of application for war pensions and subsequent appeals.

The UK Government continue to fall short, and stand guilty of putting cost cutting ahead of compensation. The stories that we have heard this evening are not isolated. Thousands of veterans have been affected by a protracted claims and appeals process. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) talked about the time that these claims were taking, and said that we owed it to our veterans to speed the process up. Some veterans have sadly taken their own lives during the long wait for a decision from the War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Tribunal.

It is concerning to hear reports that Veterans UK and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service have been prioritising reducing waiting times over the experience of those undergoing an appeal. Of course we agree that waiting times must be reduced, but that must be done in a considered manner that does not further disadvantage those who are going through the process. The Royal British Legion, which is the default provider of representation for veterans at tribunal hearings, has said:

“early this year, in order for the Courts and Tribunals Service to meet their existing Key Performance Indicator of 75% of cases disposed of within 20 weeks, cases were being listed at an ever-increasing rate, outstripping the Royal British Legion’s capacity to provide representation and leaving us unable to represent vulnerable injured veterans and bereaved spouses requesting support.”

This is a pertinent issue, given that there is no legal requirement for an appellant to have representation. Questions must be answered with regard to the impartiality surrounding Veterans UK’s medical assessments.

I want to highlight three issues this evening. The first is the practice of the same medical assessor assessing a veteran’s claim at three separate stages of the process, instead of separate or different assessors being used to ensure the impartiality of opinions and a range of opinions. The second is the ability of medical assessors to overturn medical specialist diagnosis in order to deny claims. If an individual has medical specialist information and reports, they should take priority over the opinion of a medical assessor who does not have a knowledge of that individual. The third involves the concerning reports of medical evidence and paperwork being removed from veterans’ evidence bundles during the tribunal process.

Specific groups of veterans have been neglected, and I want to speak briefly about the British nuclear test veterans. My hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian spoke extensively about the trauma-informed approach. The nuclear test veterans, in their struggle for recognition and compensation, have experienced a system that is re- traumatising, rather than trauma informed. The ongoing issues that veterans have experienced on a broader scale are reflected in the Veterans UK customer satisfaction survey, with the majority saying that they could not rely on the Veterans Welfare Service or the Defence Transition Service to do what they said they would do. The hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) talked about Veterans UK marking its own homework, and I think that is a phrase many of us would recognise.

What would we like to see? An independent inquiry is needed into the failings of the current system, which is pushing veterans into poverty and into mental health crisis. This must be a starting point towards implementing a trauma-informed approach to compensation. The review should include introducing a requirement that each veteran has access to a professional advocate to assist them through the application and the appeals process, and implementing a process of direct lodgement in England and Wales, as is already the case in Scotland.

Finally, there are other unresolved issues surrounding pensions and compensation that require urgent attention, from the LGBT veterans who were impacted by the historical ban on LGBT people in the armed forces to the veterans living abroad who are affected by the injustice of frozen pensions. I appeal to the Minister to make the necessary reforms to ensure that no veteran is disadvantaged as a result of their service and that all veterans have access to the financial support to which they are entitled.