Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boyce (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Browne, on this because I agree with the thrust of his comments. The Bill sets out to make statutory provision about legal proceedings for our Armed Forces when they are or have been engaged in overseas operations, which, of course, is a very laudable aim. However, the Bill’s significant emphasis on the presumption against prosecution as a way of relieving some of the stress of legal proceedings is misplaced. It is the investigation and then the reinvestigation process that so wears people down. A prosecution may even be a form of relief when it comes.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble and gallant Lord, but we cannot hear him very well. We shall come back to him later in the debate.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord should now continue and we will see how well we can hear him.

[Lord Boyce (CB) [V]]

My Lords, this Bill sets out to make better provision on legal proceedings for our Armed Forces when they are, or have been, engaged in overseas operations. This is a very laudable aim, but the Bill’s significant emphasis on presumption against prosecution as a way of relieving some of the stress of legal proceedings is misplaced. It is the investigation and reinvestigation process that so wears people down, and prosecution, when it comes, may even be a form of relief. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, alluded to this matter of waiting in the last group of amendments.

Anyway, we should bear in mind that, even when the presumption is in place, there is no total lifting of the threat of prosecution after five years. As the Minister has told us, this can still happen if the Attorney-General sees fit. Furthermore, there could be the spectre of an even longer investigative process if the case falls into the hands of the ICC. I know that the matter of the ICC has been well covered this afternoon, and that the Minister has sought to reassure us on this point, but I am afraid that I am not convinced. Nor it seems is the ICC, which apparently remains unconvinced by any assurances that the Government may have tried to make in defence of the Bill.

This is by the way, because, as I have mentioned, it is the investigation process that needs primarily to be addressed: to be sharpened up to ensure that it is not a fishing expedition, that there is value in pursuing the matter under consideration, that it is constrained in length, and that reinvestigations are launched only after the most careful judicial oversight. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has captured all this rather well, as indeed have other noble Lords. It is for these reasons and others that I support Amendments 5 and 28, to which I have put my name, and, indeed, other amendments in this group. I concur with much of what other noble Lords have eloquently said on the matter of investigations; I will spare your Lordships a repeat of all that has gone before in this group.

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I am concerned that the military should feel in any way disadvantaged, because that would, of course, run contrary to the overriding philosophy that lies behind this Bill. For the moment, I look forward to being reassured by the noble and learned Lord; I welcome his late arrival to the Front Bench to respond to this debate.

[Lord Boyce (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 29 and the subject of a six-year time limit being imposed by the Bill on those who have been engaged on overseas operations in their ability to bring any grievance against the MoD. This would have the perverse effect of limiting individual service personnel’s rights by restricting their access to legal remedies for harms caused by their employers, while it would not apply to their counterparts not engaged on overseas arrangements. Surely it must be beyond argument that such a situation should not be allowed, and I thus support Amendment 29.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, who is next on the list, has withdrawn, so I call the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup.