Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Stewart Malcolm McDonald

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

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does the hon. Member share my worry that potentially putting our armed forces up against the International Criminal Court could be the beginning of a path to undermining the Court itself? It is quite easy to see a situation where British service personnel are investigated, and then Conservative Members start braying for us to leave the Court in its entirety.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

That is exactly the slippery slope I fear we are on. I hate the phrase “the thin end of the wedge”, but I am afraid that it rather fits where we are with this Bill and this Government. We have those senior opinions in military, legal and political circles against the Bill. That is before we get to the recent damning report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which made clear the number of flaws in the Bill.

I am conscious of time, so I will conclude. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), suggested that, were we to change our defence posture with regard to training or peacekeeping in supporting Ukraine, we could be subject to what he called “a Russian hand” trying to take legal action here—no doubt that Russian hand is a Tory donor. That is exactly the kind of thing that would see UK personnel further exposed to the International Criminal Court.