Armed Forces Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I rise to support the re-establishment of the British Army, a matter about which I assume there will not be that much dissent—although give it a couple of weeks and who knows where the Opposition Front Bench will be. Pleasingly, the British Army headquarters are based in my constituency, although I do not hear a huge amount from them. I assume they have more powerful allies in this House than me, but they will not have a more committed one. I am very pleased to see this Bill come forward, because this is an extremely important time for the British Army—a time of great flux in terms of challenge and budget, with 2% of GDP now having been guaranteed by the Government. That will be a challenge for the Army, going a little in reverse from where it has been, and matching that through the SDSR to capability is going to be something of an iterative process. In that regard, I wanted to raise a few issues.

First, the Army is devoting more time and energy to research and technology. The nature of warfare is changing significantly as automation becomes more and more the norm. At the moment we are largely seeing that in airborne form, but the day will come quite soon when our cavalry or tank regiments become more automated; unmanned tanks are on the horizon, and significant research is taking place in the United States and elsewhere into battlefield robotics generally. I urge Ministers to consider the implications for the future.

We have too often played catch-up in our procurement in the armed services. I am old enough to remember the Heath Robinson saga of the Nimrod which never quite kept up with requirements, and TRIGAT, an anti-tank missile which took so long to come to fruition that by the time it was ready to fire, tanks had been developed whose armour could resist its penetration. More investment in technology and research is therefore critical.

My second point is about resilience. Pleasingly, the Government have taken £145 million of LIBOR fines and devoted it to welfare among families of service people. I hope Ministers will consider making sure that a fair proportion of that is spent on mental health welfare, about which we have had numerous debates in this House, not least last night when we had an Adjournment debate on this very subject.

I do not know whether legislation is needed to extend the welfare capability of the Army to those of other nationalities who have served alongside. The Minister will know that I am particularly concerned about the plight of those who acted as interpreters for the British Army in Afghanistan, about which there has been some press coverage in recent weeks, and whether they and their families are in receipt of some of the welfare funding that is available, and whether the Army has the power to transfer money and resources to their assistance. I would like that to be considered.

There is one issue in respect of the Bill that Ministers might consider on Report. There is a pleasing and sensible measure to extend testing for alcohol and drugs when an accident has occurred. That made me wonder whether Ministers might consider incorporating in the armed service disciplinary code the penalty of compulsory sobriety. The Ministry of Justice has recently extended this innovative solution to alcohol-based crime to the whole country, so that police and crime commissioners can now use it on a regular basis, following a successful trial in Croydon, in which I confess I had a hand when I was deputy mayor for policing in London. Essentially, rather than being sent to prison or be subject to other draconian measures, those convicted of an alcohol-based crime are tagged for three or six months with a tag that tests them for alcohol every 30 seconds. If they contravene there are other penalties available, but pleasingly about 98% of people comply. The great advantage of this disposal is that nobody goes to prison so people maintain their job and contact with their family. Compliance is much greater and it removes the alcohol which is the source of the offending.

It might be sensible for Ministers to investigate whether this needs incorporating in the Army code, because I have a feeling that as a disposal it will grow in popularity across the country, as it is doing in the United States. We discovered this in South Dakota, where it has taken drink-driving from three times the national average down to below the national average, and the disposal generally is now creeping its way into being used in all sorts of offences, not least domestic violence, where alcohol plays an enormous part.

I welcome the Bill and support it. We need no greater reminder of its importance than the tributes paid to the airmen who lost their lives recently. They were the best of us and their families have our deepest condolences.