Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth [V]]

My Lords, reflecting on the Bill, its intentions and likely legal effect reminded me of something I learned during my time as chaplain of Wadham College, Oxford, during the febrile days of the 1980s. Wadham was then, as now, a crucible of intellectual innovation, not least in literary studies. Its senior English fellow then was Terry Eagleton, who interested himself in a method of criticism known as deconstruction. This meant, I think, that the story we thought we were reading or being told was undermined by another narrative hidden within the text, so what we might have thought meant one thing often meant something entirely different.

The Bill before the House represents a model of deconstruction. The Government’s stated intention is, as we heard in the gracious Speech,

“to tackle vexatious claims that undermine our Armed Forces”.

I regret to say that I cannot see how the Bill, as drafted, fulfils that intention. The Government may then deserve two cheers for acting when other Governments have not, but action is not the same as outcome. The good intentions of Ministers and their statements in Parliament and the media do not match what the Bill will do. The Bill would do what the Bill states, not what the Government would like it to do, or what an MoD press release announces as its objectives. I leave it to other noble Lords far better qualified than I to reflect on the very troubling risk that the Bill might lead to crimes of torture going unpunished as well as providing an attractive precedent for those countries that have historically accepted lower standards than our own.

But I would like to comment on one aspect of the Bill. I applaud the Government’s stated intention to protect service personnel from being hung out to dry under the risk of investigations over many years, but I wonder whether, as a matter of law, this Bill provides the protection that the Government seek. I doubt it does. Indeed, I worry that we risk offering false comfort to the men and women of our Armed Forces, who deserve our support.

Moreover, I am troubled that the effect of the Bill would be to reduce, indeed take away, the legal rights of our service personnel. That concern is shared, as we know, by the Royal British Legion. I say this because the Bill introduces a six-year time limit for bringing personal injury and human rights cases against the Government. Such an absolute prohibition does not apply to civilians, because the courts can use their discretion to extend the time limits available. This Bill, as it stands, would therefore mean that service personnel have fewer legal rights than civilians, while the Government are provided with an additional protection against what might be entirely deserving late claims.

Protecting the Ministry of Defence from legitimate claims might not be the Government’s intention, but it would be the effect of this Bill. That is a poor position for the Government to get into, and, to put it as gently as I can, it is difficult to see how it accords with the commitments the Government and we have made under the military covenant. Good intentions are one thing; bad law is another. This Bill, I say with deep regret —and understatement—is disappointing, and it would represent disappointingly poor law.