Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Sarah Atherton

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

Thank you both very much.

[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

Q Hello, Emma. It is good to see you again. I am intrigued with what you just said. A blunt question to you: do you feel that the Bill is necessary?

Emma Norton: What is necessary is for what happened in the past never to happen again—definitely. I just do not think that the Bill will fix it, for the reasons I have given. I will not go over them again, but they go to the lack of willingness inside the MOD to look at those allegations at the time.

I think we are in a different place now. The MOD has learned a huge amount from all those errors. I would say that the MOD has learned from some of the litigation; there have been some very positive outcomes from that, and that is missing from the debate. I just do not think that the Bill fixes those problems sufficiently.