All 1 Kim Johnson contributions to the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill 2019-21

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Tue 3rd Nov 2020
Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill
Commons Chamber

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report stage & 3rd reading

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Kim Johnson Excerpts
Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd November 2020

(4 years ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill 2019-21 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 3 November 2020 - (large print) - (3 Nov 2020)
Kim Johnson Portrait Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
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When the Government brought this Bill forward, their aim was to end vexatious claims against former service personnel and the Ministry of Defence, but the evidence does not bear out what the Government say is the scale of the problem. No service personnel, present or former, deserve to be investigated and prosecuted for a crime they did not commit, or to be repeatedly investigated without good reason, but the figures, as the Government well know, are not of a scale that would justify the proposals in the Bill.

In relation to Iraq, only a handful of prosecutions have been brought against junior personnel.

Of the civil prosecutions against the MOD over the past five years, just 0.8% related to Iraq. The Minister has said, in relation to the majority of the repeat investigations or delayed prosecutions, that

“one of the biggest problems…was the military’s inability to investigate itself properly and the standard of those investigations…If those investigations were done properly and self-regulation had occurred, we probably wouldn’t be here today”.

Rather than put forward proposals to tackle the real reason behind any repeat investigations or delayed prosecutions, the Bill instead proposes unprecedented and dangerous legal protections, which will create a legal regime that secures immunity for serious offences and inequality before the law for victims of abuse and armed forces personnel.