Draft Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2020

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 General Committees

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is a great delight to see you in the Chair, Sir David, not least because I think you were here when the legislation was introduced. I do not mean the Bill of Rights 1688, obviously; I mean the 2006 Act. I remember it because we were both in the Chamber on Report and on Third Reading, which was quite contentious at the time, because the Act includes substantial measures on desertion and absence without leave. Those were highly contentious issues in the aftermath of the Iraq war. I remember very clearly the current Leader of the Opposition and shadow Chancellor being the most irritating people in the Chamber. I have a slight anxiety that they may go back to that position in a year’s time, when we get to the next round of legislation.

The Minister slightly understates the danger of not passing the draft order: the danger is that it would be illegal for the British Government to hold any form of armed forces—certainly an Army, because that is what is specified in the Bill of Rights, but I would have thought, by extension, any form of armed forces—for the United Kingdom. Of course it is important that the draft order is agreed.

I must say, however, that it is a slightly odd process that successive Governments have decided on to arrive at the piece of paper before us today. The 2006 Act presumed that there would be a 2011 Act, then a 2016 Act and a 2021 Act, and that they would be more or less the same as the original Act, with some bits added. However, in 2011 the Government decided that they would instead insert into the 2006 Act a first clause that said that we could keep on doing it by annual motions, by Order in Council, until the end of 2021.

Personally, I do not think that that really counts as the House of Commons granting consent to the continuation of the armed forces. The vast majority of Members will have absolutely no idea that we are in this Committee Room tonight or have any idea about the debate. I think that is a shame, not because I want to hinder the Government, but because our armed forces frankly deserve, at least once a year, a debate on the Floor of the House in which we decide, as Parliament, that we will positively affirm our support for our armed forces, rather than this kind of up-in-my-lady’s-boudoir affair. [Interruption.] The Whip woke up at that point.

We have a strange system to explain to any ordinary member of the armed forces. I am sure that when the Minister was informed that this was the process that he would have to explain tonight, he was slightly flummoxed by it. The 2006 Act did important things. For a start, it meant that all the services were treated in the same way in legislation from the beginning. It brought in, as I said, measures to do with desertion and absence without leave, but more importantly it made sure that no member of the armed forces could suffer double jeopardy, which was always a danger under the previous law. A member of the armed forces could sometimes be tried in a court martial and then also in the common courts of the land.

There is one other issue, and there is a sadness about the fact that we are dealing with it in this way. Like many other Members, I worry about vexatious claims being brought against members of the British armed forces long after the events took place. This is not an easy issue to resolve. I remember that when I was a Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for about five minutes, we faced the tough problem of trying to bring back serious war criminals from countries in the Balkans and make sure that they saw justice. Just having allowed years to pass was not a good enough reason for us not to want to bring them to justice.

The obvious danger is that if we as a country end up effectively outlawing any kind of claim against the British armed forces, we are saying to other armed forces in other parts of the world that are much less pernickety about these matters that they can do whatever they want. In a sense, the fact that we still deal with this issue in this way is a lost opportunity. However, I of course support some of the Minister’s endeavours, and particularly his endeavour tonight. I add that I am still waiting for my meeting with him about acquired brain injury.