Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Joy Morrissey and Stuart Anderson

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for being a tireless advocate for veterans and making this Bill possible. I also thank the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for his loquacious advocacy for veterans throughout the Bill Committee. He raised questions about the participation of other Members, but I would wager that his words that poured forth throughout the Committee covered every aspect of anything we may have an interest in.

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

I was not in the Chamber when that was said earlier, but it is fair to say that I made over 40 interventions in the Back-Bench debate, so I certainly contributed to the Bill Committee in that regard, as did many other Members. It would therefore be unfair to say that there was no contribution from Conservative Members.

[Joy Morrissey]

It was indeed an honour to serve on the Committee, because I myself, although not serving in the military, had two brothers who were veterans, and I saw the way that war and conflict tore their lives and our family apart.

I have spoken to many veterans who have said that they were at the point of wanting to kill themselves—some attempted it—for the fear of being prosecuted through these kinds of claims. The Bill protects the men and women who have risked their lives and fought to keep us safe and free. It allows our brave servicemen and women to go overseas to fight and represent us, and then come back and safely carry on their lives. That is what the Bill was intended to do, and I believe that that is what it will do.

I appreciate the plethora of amendments presented by the right hon. Member for North Durham. I am grateful for his studious nature in making sure that we have covered every aspect of these clauses. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) mentioned, the investigative system is out of control. The Bill goes some way towards mitigating that, and we could perhaps have gone even further. The issue of derogation, which was raised at the start, was not further discussed, but we could have done so with a greater level of debate.

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

Debate between Joy Morrissey and Stuart Anderson

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 8th October 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Joy Morrissey]

Q But if we engage in joint military operations with allies, is it not more important that we are aligned with what our military allies view as the legal framework, rather than anything else? Is that not the most important component of how we protect our servicemen and women, by all operating in the same framework—for example, if we are on a joint NATO operation overseas—and that all the countries engaged in that military operation share in the same framework?

General Sir Nick Parker: As I said, I believe that we need to be consistent with our coalition partners. All I would add is that you cannot predict who your coalition partner will be, because we do not know whom we will be fighting with in the future. Therefore, there has to be a certain consistency that is probably provided by international norms.

[Stuart Anderson]

Q General, it is good to see you. I was barely out of school when I came under your command in Dover, where you were the CO, the commanding officer. We were at very different ends of the spectrum of rank structure, but it is a pleasure to see you again.

A lot of what you discussed there is the chain of command. You talked about implementing different procedures within the chain of command. I would argue that that is an internal military adjustment, not for a Bill or other legislation, but I would then say, looking back, with your experience and what you know with hindsight—we always want to learn from the past to move forward—what would you have done differently, and what could be done differently by the chain of command, outside legislation, to protect our troops?

General Sir Nick Parker: The irony, then, is that I am now subordinate to you, an elected representative in the House, so congratulations, and—

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

Debate between Joy Morrissey and Stuart Anderson

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Joy Morrissey]

Q Hilary, do you agree that it is impossible to actually reach a fair verdict if you do not have the national security background or the military files on what was decided at the time? If that is restricted information—some of those documents may be classified for several years or decades—how is the service person supposed to defend themselves if they do not have that level of information?

Hilary Meredith: I agree; it is extremely difficult. When I am putting forward an independent person, I am talking about somebody in civvy street, which would be even more difficult. Unless you sign up to the Official Secrets Act and there is a full cards-on-the-table procedure, it would be very hard to defend.

[Stuart Anderson]

Q Going back to when you said the time limit is a red herring, how do you think the serving personnel and veteran community will take it if we took your recommendation and removed the time limit from the Bill?

Hilary Meredith: The time limit, on the face of it, is welcomed by most veterans and military personnel, but the reading of it is a concern. For example, time limits will be introduced if military personnel serving overseas are killed or injured in service. Putting a time limit on that puts them in a worse position than civilians. That alone outweighs the prospect of a time limit on a criminal prosecution. Most criminal prosecutions were done in a timely manner. It was the process that caused them to be historical. Differentiating between the two and sorting out the process is more welcome than actually putting a time limit on an allegation.