Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diana Johnson and Mark Francois

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

As a former reservist, I am delighted to do so. Army reservists have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they will continue to serve in Operation Toral. I believe that some elements of 3PWRR—a regiment close to the heart of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier)—will deploy to Afghanistan shortly as part of the security force. Reservists will be an important and integral part of our commitment under Operation Toral.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

3. What assessment he has made of recent trends in recruitment to the Army Reserve; and if he will make a statement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diana Johnson and Mark Francois

Monday 24th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

Two reservists are already working in the joint civilian military headquarters in Sierra Leone, and another two are soon to deploy to the region. In a month or so, we expect 18 reservist medics to deploy to Sierra Leone to work alongside their regular counterparts in the 12-bed Ebola treatment centre at Kerry Town. We should also pay tribute to those NHS personnel who have recently mobilised and travelled out to Sierra Leone to join that effort as well.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

A church in my constituency would like to send food parcels to Sierra Leone, the capital of which, Freetown, is twinned with Hull. However, it found the transport costs prohibitive, and asked me whether it could work with the Ministry of Defence to find ways of getting the food parcels over to Sierra Leone to help families who are affected by Ebola.

[Mr Francois]

I appreciate the offer of the hon. Lady’s church. The most constructive thing I can say is that if she wants to write or e-mail me with the details, we will see what can be done to take up that kind offer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diana Johnson and Mark Francois

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

1. What progress his Department has made on the Army 2020 programme.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Mark Francois)]

The Army continues to implement Army 2020 structures in accordance with the announcement made by the Secretary of State on 5 July 2012. Headquarters Force Troops Command has formed in its new role, and Headquarters 1 UK and 3 UK divisions will commence their new roles this autumn. Units will enter the new annual training cycle from 1 January 2015.

[Diana Johnson]

Will the Minister explain why the only target the Government will meet is to shrink the full- time regular Army to 82,500 by 2018, so that the whole professional British Army will fit inside Wembley stadium? What does that say about the coalition’s priorities in terms of national security?

[Mr Francois]

First, the reserve force is professional too, and the combined regular and reserved force will not fit inside Wembley stadium—although the way England has been playing of late, that may be a mercy. I remind the hon. Lady that the new defence approach does not represent our purely breaking new ground, but brings us more into line with our international partners. Reserves currently make up 17% of our armed forces, compared with 55% in the United States, 51% in Canada, and 36% in Australia. Under Future Force 2020, reserves will make up 20% of our armed forces and 26% of our Army.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diana Johnson and Mark Francois

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T8. Bearing in mind what the Minister said about the military covenant and the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 campaign for a fair deal for our troops, will he now publish the impact assessment—which I am sure he undertook—of the effect of the bedroom tax on the armed forces, and the actual numbers affected?

[Mr Francois]

I have to say to the hon. Lady that I believe that she and some of her parliamentary colleagues are becoming over-excited about this. We have discussed it with the Department for Work and Pensions, and we believe that a very small number of service personnel will be affected, but we will continue to keep the matter under review.

Armed Forces Redundancies

Debate between Diana Johnson and Mark Francois

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend has listened carefully to what has been said, and he is right to suggest that, because of the draw-down of our forces profile in Afghanistan, it will be only in April 2013 that we decide exactly which units will be going there. Clearly, it will then be a priority to look at anyone who might no longer be excluded from redundancy, but in effect, most of those who are in fields that are eligible for redundancy at the moment will have been notified by the chain of command this morning, in parallel with the process of notifying the House.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Hull has always been a strong recruiting ground for the armed forces, but alongside these redundancies, pay and pensions are being cut and many will be affected by the strivers’ tax and the bedroom tax. As I understand it, the cuts that have already been announced will mean that the entire British Army will fit into Wembley stadium by 2020. Will the Minister tell me whether the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday about being able to fight a decades-long campaign against global terrorism was realistic?

[Mr Francois]

I understand it, once we have our reserves at full strength, the British Army will not be able to fit inside Wembley stadium.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diana Johnson and Mark Francois

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to those units and, indeed, to cadet units across the country, which do so much to foster the right values in our young people. I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Leading Cadet A. Green of the Sea Cadets Corps, from the Winsford and Middlewich unit, who was appointed a Lord Lieutenant’s Cadet recently. We commend that cadet too.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Private schools account for only 8% of all schools yet have 76% of cadet forces. Will the Minister confirm that, as a matter of urgency, he will switch the majority of the available funding to the state sector?

[Mr Francois]

As the hon. Lady rightly points out, it is a historical fact that the majority of cadet units in schools have historically been in the independent sector. The non-school cadet units, however, are spread across the whole country. Within schools, the bulk of the funding is focused, as I said in my earlier answer, towards trying to promote cadet units in state schools. Of those 70, a number of the new units, including one at an Essex school in Westcliff, are up and running.

Wayne Moore

Debate between Diana Johnson and Mark Francois

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

If the House will allow me a brief indulgence, after two and a half years in the Whips Office and the vow of Omerta that goes with it, it is a pleasure to be able to speak in the House of Commons again. Now that I have that ability, may I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on securing this debate on the case of her constituent, Mr Wayne Moore, who was allegedly assaulted on 25 May 2008 in Germany? I note that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) is also in the Chamber and I am well aware of his long interest in this case as Mr Moore’s constituency MP, before Mr Moore moved to Hull.

I was sorry to learn the details of this incident, as I am for Mr Moore, who has clearly suffered following the events of 25 May 2008. That was made plain by the Member of Parliament who now represents him. I hope that this debate will help answer any outstanding concerns Mr Moore may have. I am sure, though, that the House will also understand that I will be unable to cover some detail relating to the case publicly, not least for reasons of data protection and legal privilege. However, I can confirm that this incident was initially investigated by the Royal Military Police. It may help at this juncture if I explain that the RMP undertook the investigation under the agreement with the German authorities covering the basing of our forces in the country as part of the NATO alliance, which is known as the status of forces agreement. This is because the accused was a British serviceman and the incident took place on a British military base. The service police work very closely with their civilian colleagues, both in the UK and when our forces are deployed overseas.

The initial investigation commenced on 26 May 2008. It concluded in November that year, and the matter was passed to the chain of command of the accused for their consideration. In December, following legal advice, the commanding officer made a decision using his statutory authority under the Army Act 1955—the legislation that was in force at that time—not to prosecute any individual in relation to the incident. The case was therefore discontinued at that stage. Following representations from Mr Moore, a lieutenant colonel from the Royal Military Police conducted an internal review in July 2009, which the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North mentioned. He conducted a thorough review of the case and the relevant evidence, and identified a number of missed investigative opportunities. CCTV footage was reviewed and found to have no evidence of the incident in question, but was not recovered; some potential witnesses to the incident were not identified; and there were avoidable delays that, in one case, may have led to a witness declining to provide identification evidence. Nevertheless, he concluded that those shortfalls would not have materially altered the outcome, not least because other evidence, including witness evidence, contradicted Mr Moore’s version of the incident.

The Royal Military Police’s chief officer, the Provost Marshal (Army), wrote to Mr Moore to offer his personal apologies for these failures in the investigative process and to suggest a meeting with his staff to explain their findings in more detail. Mr Moore took them up on this offer and later that year the Royal Military Police met the hon. Lady’s constituent and explained their findings to him directly.

Following that review, Mr Moore continued to express reservations about the way in which the matter had been investigated and again asked that the matter be reopened. Accordingly, in March 2010, the Royal Military Police asked a retired civilian detective chief superintendent with many years’ experience in this area to undertake a further independent review of the case to provide additional external assurance of the investigation. This further review concurred with the Royal Military Police’s own assessment that although some investigative opportunities were missed in the case, as the hon. Lady said, they would not have altered the outcome of the investigation. It was, however, suggested by the detective chief superintendent, that obtaining further evidence from medical sources who treated Mr Moore in Germany at the time and subsequently in the UK might provide grounds to allow investigators to refer the case to the Service Prosecuting Authority under the new legislative framework of the Armed Forces Act 2006, which had recently come into force in October 2009.

As such, the chief officer of the Royal Military Police set about obtaining further medical evidence in support of Mr Moore’s case. Unfortunately, and despite the efforts of police investigators, it took until March 2011 for all the additional information to be provided. I should point out here that these medical sources were not military and there was considerable delay on the part of the civilian medical authorities in providing the necessary information. The issue of patient/doctor confidentiality and data protection, and the difficulty this poses to police forces wishing to pursue fully all lines of inquiry, is an issue that we recognise, and one that faces many police organisations, not only, in fairness, those in the military.

As a result of that further work, the case was referred to the Director of Service Prosecutions. Having received the file, prosecutors requested further clarification, which required a short period of further work. Once that was complete, they properly applied the “full code” test, which requires the prosecuting authority to judge whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction—is it more likely than not?—and, if so, whether prosecution is in the public, including the service, interest. In this case they considered that there was not a realistic prospect of conviction and, therefore, no charges were brought.

Because of the role it plays within the service justice system, the Service Prosecuting Authority is rightly independent of both the chain of command and the Ministry of Defence and falls under the superintendence of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. That is analogous to the Crown Prosecution Service being independent of the civilian police. I hope that the hon. Lady will therefore understand that it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on its decision.

What I can say is that the Director of Service Prosecutions has reviewed the case personally and not only provided an assurance that the correct assessment processes were followed but endorsed the decision that there was no realistic prospect of conviction. Accordingly, the managing prosecutor wrote to Mr Moore to advise him formally of the outcome, explaining the reasons for the conclusion he reached and provided Mr Moore with the opportunity to request a meeting to discuss the reasons in more detail, which I understand he has not, to date, pursued. The Solicitor-General subsequently reviewed the case papers and did not dissent from the decision.

No one can deny that, following the independent case review in early 2010, this case was more protracted than anyone would have wished. In that sense, the hon. Lady has a perfectly fair point. We also recognise that there were failures properly to support and inform Mr Moore of the status of the initial investigation and subsequently through the review process. I hope that the hon. Lady is assured, as I was, by the willingness of the service police to consider her constituent’s concerns and review the case not once, but twice, including by an independent assessor. As I know she will appreciate, the vast majority of police investigations within the service justice system are managed quickly, efficiently and effectively. Nevertheless, in the small percentage of cases in which investigative mistakes have been made, it is vital that the police are open and honest enough to hold their hands up and apologise, and I believe that this case highlights their willingness to do so.

[Diana Johnson]

I think that the Minister is coming to the end of his contribution and wonder whether he might be willing to comment on the allegation that has now been made against Mr Moore four years on—that he perpetrated the attack—which was not raised before and has caused him a great deal of distress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point and think that I will have time to refer to it in my conclusion.

I would not want to leave the House with the impression that the delay that occurred in this case, for which the RMP has apologised, is the norm within the service justice system: it is not. Members will be aware that the three services each have their own police forces—the Royal Navy Police, the Royal Military Police and the Royal Air Force Police—which have statutory powers devolved through the Armed Forces Act. They are deployed wherever the armed forces are based and, because the armed forces reflect society, are expected to deliver the full spectrum of law enforcement capability and investigate all types of crime. They are therefore trained to standards set by the National Policing Improvement Agency and, where necessary, advanced technical training is provided by the civil police.

Last year more than 2,500 cases were investigated by the Royal Military Police alone and over 600 cases were prosecuted by the Service Prosecuting Authority at courts martial. The average time to trial in 2011 was 111 days, which compares favourably with, for example, magistrates courts, which have average completion rates of 144 days for all defendants, although I accept that it is difficult to make direct comparisons because of the unique nature of some service offences.

I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the service police. For the most part, they do an outstanding job in difficult and sometimes exceptionally dangerous circumstances. Of course they sometimes get criticised—every police force in the country has been criticised at one time or another—but it would be wrong to draw broad conclusions from individual cases. Some cases result in convictions, some in acquittals, and some, for various reasons, do not proceed to trial. That is the nature of any criminal justice system, whether service or civilian. The key thing is for organisations to acknowledge when mistakes are made and to learn from them. I can assure the hon. Lady that that is what has happened in this case. Lessons have been learned. Royal Military Police investigative policy and practice is continually developed and adapted in the light of experience and emerging civil police best practice. Furthermore, since Mr Moore raised his concerns, a code of practice has been introduced by the Ministry of Defence detailing the services to be provided by the armed forces to the victims of crime. This is designed to ensure that victims are properly supported and that at every stage of the investigation and prosecutorial process they are kept fully informed of progress in their case.

Ultimately, we accept that there could have been improvements in the way the case was initially investigated. I am conscious, however, that it has now been reviewed and considered by the Royal Military Police, by a senior retired civilian detective, by the Service Prosecuting Authority, and by the Solicitor-General, so it has been looked at in great detail four times already. I have also discussed the case personally with the Provost Marshal (Army) as well as consulting staff from the independent Service Prosecuting Authority. I have been assured that the case has now been exhaustively investigated and that the correct decision not to prosecute was reached. Part of the reason that decision has been made is that, as I said, the witness statements that have been made available clearly contradict the version of events that has been provided by Mr Moore.

I know that the hon. Lady’s constituent continues to suffer as a result of the events of May 2008. Nevertheless, his suffering is not in itself proof that a crime was committed, and after repeated, careful and independent consideration of the events in question the conclusion has always remained the same—that there is no realistic prospect of convicting any individual in relation to this matter. I hope that in saying that I have been able to answer fairly clearly the point that she put to me in her intervention, but if she feels that I have not, I will gladly give way again.

[Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to intervene again. If he is now saying, four years on, that the witness statements contradicted the original account of what had happened, why was an investigation not taken forward against Mr Moore? It seems very convenient that four years on the tables have been turned on him and that this was not raised much earlier if there was evidence.

[Mr Francois]

I understand the hon. Lady’s question. I do not think that there was evidence sufficient to prosecute Mr Moore for what happened in this case, just as I do not think there was evidence sufficient to prosecute the accused, as it were. Given that the case has been reviewed four times, and having looked into this, I am confident that the previous decisions were correct. However, I absolutely respect the hon. Lady’s doggedness in wanting to get to the bottom of what happened on behalf of the member of the public she represents. I hope that she will feel that I have tried to answer her question directly.

The Service Prosecuting Authority’s offer to meet Mr Moore further to explain its decision not to prosecute remains open. Under the circumstances, particularly as explained to the House by the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Cheltenham, I strongly encourage Mr Moore—the hon. Lady might want to play some part in this—to take the Service Prosecuting Authority up on this offer in the hope that he could then put these questions to it directly and that that might enable it to answer those questions and perhaps to help him to come to terms with what has happened. I can only make that suggestion from this Dispatch Box, but I hope that the hon. Lady’s constituent will take it up because, given the long and complicated history of this case, it would be helpful if he sat down with and put these questions directly to the SPA so that it could reply directly to him. I can drop a hint in that regard, but I cannot force the hon. Lady’s constituent to take it.

In conclusion, I hope that I have done my best to address directly the points that have been put to me. I commend the hon. Lady and her friend on the Liberal Democrat Benches, who is also my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, for the way in which they have approached this case. I hope that I have done my best to put their concerns to rest.

Question put and agreed to.