Armed Forces Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Moon]

May I say how much I welcome my hon. Friend’s appointment? I totally agree about the need to probe the issue of extending British law to troops based and training here. The people of Cambridgeshire need a full explanation of why that was not possible. Whether it proves possible is moot. The important thing is that they know it is being fully explored. Will she also say something about the importance of opening up the ability of members of the armed forces to come forward when they have experienced rape and sexual assault, as often they are advised by people in the chain of command that it might damage their career to do so?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. There is plenty of time to speak. If the hon. Lady wishes to make a speech, I will put her on the list with pleasure.

[Maria Eagle]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is a member of the Defence Select Committee, for her welcome for my appointment, and I hear what she has to say about these matters. The reason Liberty is campaigning on some of these issues is that, if things go wrong, it can destroy people’s lives and cause many difficulties, not only for the individuals affected but for the services. In Committee, I want us to debate the matter further with Ministers, who I know have met and considered these matters with campaigners, and to hear a bit more detail about policy development and where they are in respect of some of these things.

We have already heard from the Secretary of State the rationale for extending the provisions in the Armed Forces Act 2006 to the Isle of Man and British overseas territories, except Gibraltar, but we will want to make sure, by way of the normal scrutiny one would expect of a Bill, that the provisions are correctly drafted, fit for purpose and will do what he said he wants them to do.

We are concerned about the rationale for the provisions in clauses 14 and 15 relating to the powers of Ministry of Defence firefighters in an emergency. There is no discernible problem, or any reason why those provisions need to be in the Bill. The explanatory notes suggest, as the Secretary of State did, that MOD firefighters currently have no power in an emergency to act to protect life and property, but I wonder whether there have been instances of the kind of difficulty to which he referred. Have there been instances of such firefighters being prosecuted, or being sued for assault or for breaking and entering? If there have been any such instances, I can see why he might want to introduce these provisions. If there have been no such instances and this is simply a tidying-up exercise, how come he perceives a problem now?

[Maria Eagle]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that further explanation. In preparing for my remarks, I gave the chief fire officer of Merseyside’s fire and rescue authority a ring to ask whether the Chief Fire Officers Association, of which he is a member, has been consulted about these provisions. I thought it might have asked for this kind of measure. My contact with him was the first he had heard of these provisions, although he was of the opinion that he would have expected the CFOA or the local authority fire and rescue authorities to have been consulted ahead of their introduction. They are category 1 responders and would have expected to have been consulted on these provisions. There are well-known, regular opportunities for the MOD to consult and liaise with the civilian fire authorities and chief officers, but that has not been done in this instance, which made me wonder precisely what was going on. The provisions seem to imply the deployment of MOD firefighters beyond the confines of their current role on MOD property. The definition of “firefighter” includes, as I believe the Secretary of State said, contractors and subcontractors employed by private companies, and we are at a time when the work the Defence Fire Risk Management Organisation does is being outsourced or tendered. We will want to probe this matter further in Committee.

The Secretary of State has sought to reassure me, and I am open to being reassured. I am pleased to confirm that, with those few remarks and slight concerns notwithstanding, we will be supporting the Bill and seeking in Committee to probe its provisions, improving them where we can. Of course, if they cannot be improved, we will support them. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Is anybody interested in speaking? I call Jack Lopresti.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O'Hara]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I can understand the temptation, but I do not want to open this pretty technical debate into a general point-scoring debate on policy. As I say, I can understand the temptation, but I am sure the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) will want to stick to what we are debating.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. To respond very briefly, I refer the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) to the White Paper published before the referendum. Everything would be contained therein. The Scottish National party is quite clear about its paramount commitment to conventional defences. We would thus obviously invest in such defences.

I shall take your advice, Mr Deputy Speaker, and perhaps not engage further, other than to say that we shall support the Bill as it makes its way through Committee. Most notably, at the 2015 general election, the SNP was the only party to make a commitment to providing a statutory footing for a British Armed Forces Federation. We would like to introduce such provisions into the Bill in Committee. There is, of course, already an established British Armed Forces Federation, which provides a professional, independent and apolitical voice for service personnel. The BAFF is, in its own words,

“a specifically British solution for the British Armed Forces”,

which campaigns on range of issues such as armed forces housing, compensation and improved medical care for veterans.

Veterans’ mental health is particularly important. I recommend anyone attending last night’s Adjournment debate—and those who did not attend it—to get hold of the Hansard and read the fantastic contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), ably supported by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer). This was a learned and informed debate—a shining example, I believe, of this House at its best.

If the BAFF were given statutory status, it would be a far more robust organisation in providing legal advice, aid for the writing of wills, anti-bullying advice, grievance reporting and, of course, aid to those with mental health problems. The idea of having an armed forces federation is not new and it is not radical. Indeed, there are several such federations operating extremely well within the armed forces of many of our NATO allies. Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Germany and Hungary all have armed forces federations, while there are also recognised and functioning armed forces federations in Australia and, closer to home, in Ireland. I firmly believe that a mature and responsible military such as that of the United Kingdom has nothing to fear from an armed forces federation.

As I said elsewhere, it should be seen as complementary rather than in opposition to the chain of command. A federation would not impinge in any way on the chain of command, but would rather give support to service personnel and their families—and, of course, to our veterans, to whom we all have a duty of care. If a federation works well for the police force, surely it is wholly appropriate that we extend the same right to our military personnel, who put their lives on the line every time they go on duty.

In conclusion, we support the Bill and will continue to support it, but we will go through it, as the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood said, line by line to make sure that the Bill will be the best that it can be. Our service personnel deserve no less.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I know that the Scottish nationalist party wants to play up its victim mentality, which it has turned into an art form that I admire, but the idea to which the hon. Gentleman’s White Paper refers, which is that Scotland could provide the manpower needed for its proposals from the Scottish population, which is getting older, was absolute nonsense—[Interruption.] May I give him some evidence? He needs only to look at the recruitment to Scottish regiments when they were reorganised. Why was one regiment in Scotland—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We have moved way off the subject of the Bill. I understand that there is a desire to keep proceedings going, so I am not trying to pin it down to a tight debate, but I like to try to keep the debate on the subject of the Bill at least a little, so I am sure that the hon. Gentleman could mention it now and again. Given his experience, I know that that will never be a difficulty.

[Mr Jones]

I would refer, for example, to the recruitment of overseas nationals from the Commonwealth. The regiments that had to backfill with Fijians were the Scottish regiments because they could not get the numbers within Scotland. If the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute has some magic pool of people in Scotland who will suddenly join the armed forces or if there is some huge boom that will happen in the next few years that means that 18-year-olds and fit individuals will join the armed forces, I would like to see them.

[Brendan O’Hara]

The hon. Gentleman is not exactly doing the idea of the United Kingdom a great service. Indeed, he is pointing out everything that is wrong with the current system.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think we are now going to get back to the Bill. We have had enough playing around. Kevan Jones, have you finished?

[Mr Jones]

Certainly not.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That is all right then. What I will say is that you have finished on this point.

[Mr Jones]

Absolutely.

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I shall try to resist the urge to go off the point, Mr Deputy Speaker. The shadow Minister is a very experienced Member of Parliament and when he started his political career the world was a different place from what it is today. Does he recognise the necessity of having a much more flexible military system to deal with the threats that are evolving and changing in the world today?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think I might be able to help here. The hon. Gentleman might have been referring to the civil war as regards Kevan Jones, as he has been around for a long time, but we are not going to open up a debate about when he first got here and how the armed forces have changed.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, however. It is not just the equipment and how we deploy things that has changed. The armed forces do not sit in a vacuum away from the rest of society, and that is one of the main issues for consideration. Things that were acceptable 20, 30 or 40 years ago for young people who joined the armed forces no longer are. When I was a Minister talking to senior military personnel, I heard that young people were far more questioning, although not in a disrespectful way, and more knowledgeable about their rights. They wanted to engage rather than take instructions. That is a challenge for the armed forces. We need to ensure that there are mechanisms in place for when things go wrong and, as I said in an intervention during the speech from the hon. Member for Portsmouth South, a safety valve to deal with complaints.