Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Craig of Radley and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, oppose this amendment. I take the opportunity at the start of the session to remind your Lordships of my interest as a serving member of the Army Reserve.

I was going to intervene on the noble Lord, but perhaps I will give him this opportunity to intervene on me in reply to this question: how many members of the Armed Forces have contacted him or the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to ask for this? Surely somebody has. I say that, because at no point in my 33 years’ service in the regular and reserve has this ever really been a topic of discussion for serving members of the Armed Forces. If the noble Lord wants to intervene on me or perhaps answer the question when he comes back at the end, I would be fascinated to know how many members of the Armed Forces have actually asked for this. I have a horrible feeling that the answer is none. I certainly have no experience of that.

Equally, I share the noble and gallant Lord’s concerns about the impact on the chain of command. Given the unique circumstances that we find ourselves in in the military, certainly on operations, there is a distinct way of doing things with the chain of command. There are ways through the chain of command to make your complaints. Of course, we now also have the Service Complaints Commissioner. We have quite a developed sense of how this works in the military, which is why I go back to my first point: I just do not sense that there is any demand for this at all within the community the noble Lord is seeking to impose it on.

Where there are areas of concern, for example pay, we have quite a developed system with the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body. I have given evidence to this body as a Minister. It is a very considered body, it is independent and its recommendations have been taken very seriously by successive Governments now for many years. We have seen that in the annual pay award, which the Government are forced to respond to

I suppose my principal opposition to all this is that I just do not understand where the demand is coming from, other than political parties potentially wishing to impose their values on our Armed Forces.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I do not support this amendment either. Indeed, I fully endorse the remarks of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce. I do not for a moment question the good faith in and the fulsome support of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Tunnicliffe, for the Armed Forces. However, I believe that there is a concept, of which this amendment is an example, that has been aired from time to time over the past 30 years and more—a concept that seems to have sprung in part from the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. The concept, or supposition, was that the Armed Forces were “civilians in uniform”, so their treatment, expectations and everything else about their daily lives should be seen and fashioned in that civilian primary context. However, it is a false premise.

I believe that the proposal in this amendment has been floated unsuccessfully more than once since the 1980s. Of course, members of the Armed Forces, like all their civilian counterparts, are human, but members of the Armed Forces have duties and responsibilities unmatched in the civilian environment. The fact that we are dealing with an Armed Forces Bill that affects the lives and well-being as well as the fighting efficiency of our Armed Forces underlines that point in spades. The fact that this Act has to be renewed every year and owes its origins to the time of Henry VIII exemplifies the unique difference in treatment, both in law and more generally, of the Armed Forces from the civilian world of employment over centuries.

Whether on or off duty, the behaviour of service personnel may be much praised, but if they fall short of good behaviour it is their service as well as themselves that attracts bad publicity and opprobrium. The more senior the individual, the greater the public dismay at poor or reprehensible behaviour. Both on or off duty, the service individual has a duty to behave responsibility, and who or what has or should have the responsibility to lead and encourage that? It must be the chain of command.

I have many times in my own experience explained why this is so fundamental to the ethos and fighting efficiency of the Armed Forces. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, spelled all this out in the clearest of terms in her introductory remarks in the first sitting of this Committee. She said, and it is worth quoting:

“It is worth emphasising that members of the military are governed by a more stringent set of rules and restrictions than those of us in civilian life. These rules are designed to maintain discipline and promote operational effectiveness so that they can get the job done. Many of these additional rules and restrictions to which service personnel are subject apply regardless of whether they are on or off duty.”—[Official Report, 27/10/2021; col. GC 146.]


That is worth listening to and remembering.

The regard for an application of such a unique regime must rely primarily on the chain of command. I am not alone in expressing concern and, at times, even dismay at the way in which the chain of command’s uniquely important role has been set aside or weakened, sometimes in the search for more transparent justice. However, no judicial system is perfect. The imperfection is processed and managed by gradations of justice, but that does not make it infallible.

The introduction of an Armed Forces federation, regardless of whether such an organisation could perform alongside the chain of command without confusion, overlap or mismanagement, would once more be to underrate the chain of command’s importance to the efficiency and ethos of the Armed Forces. Indeed, I am not sure, as the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, was saying, on what research or examination the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Tunnicliffe, have undertaken in support of this amendment. Like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce—and, I believe, all chiefs of staff since my day, over 30 years ago, including the present holders of that office—I agree that an alongside federation as proposed in this amendment would be a grave mistake. That body of expert opinion should be heeded. I do not support the amendment.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Craig of Radley and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 49 and 63, but I shall speak to Amendment 63 and concentrate on the plight of the few UK Armed Forces veterans of the Hong Kong Military Service Corps. For completeness, I also include veterans of the Royal Navy Hong Kong Squadron. They were all full members of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces throughout their service. They took the same lifetime oath of loyalty as all other British service members, and paid full UK taxes. Officially recognised as veterans by Her Majesty’s Government, they are not being treated fairly and reasonably, as the covenant requires. I have already explained the background to this issue to the Minister and raised it many times in this House, so I will not repeat myself now in this Committee.

The recent swift action by the Government to evacuate and grant right of abode to thousands of Afghanis shows that the Home Office can respond fast. Is there any reason why the Government have prevaricated for the past nine years and refused to come to a decision about granting the request of the Hong Kong veterans for British citizenship and right of abode? These veterans’ covenant rights should apply in Hong Kong as they do anywhere else.

The imposed national security law in Hong Kong has put the “one country, two systems” paradigm in a precarious state. These veterans find themselves living under Beijing rule. They, along with many other Hong Kongers, are worried, but they are small in number and believe their case is now a matter of humanity, not politics. They feel they are being treated as aliens, not veterans of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.

They, as much as other past members of the Armed Forces, deserve a positive decision, not the endless excuse that their case is being “actively considered”. That euphemism has been the response of Home Office Ministers and a frequently repeated response to approaches from Members of both Houses on behalf of these veterans for the past nine years and more. Over 60 individual applications from this small group of veterans, which I forwarded to the Home Office on their behalf in March 2020, over 18 months ago, have gone unanswered. It all smacks of a Sir Humphrey-style reaction, unworthy of the Home Office, unless it aspires to remain a department unfit for business in this area. It is long past time for this request to be resolved finally and clearly.

Is this not an equally pertinent example, as was the case of Gulf War syndrome, highlighted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, in the earlier Committee debate, of the need to include the Secretary of State for Defence in the list of those who must have a duty of care under the covenant? These Hong Kong Armed Forces veterans’ concerns and requests are not ones that could be devolved or passed to a local authority. Including the Secretary of State in this Bill is necessary to fill this gap in the duty of care under the covenant. Will the Government acknowledge that this Hong Kong veterans’ claim is a long-standing and legitimate one that should be honoured by reaching a decision now?

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to contribute on Amendment 49. In doing so, I declare my interest as Colonel Commandant of the Brigade of Gurkhas. I have had a long association with the brigade since, as an 18 year-old troop commander in the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers, I first visited Nepal in 1988. I have served with them ever since, in Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere, so I am delighted to now be the Colonel Commandant.

This is an interesting day. Yesterday marked the 207th anniversary of the death of Major-General Rollo Gillespie at the Battle of Kalunga, where a tiny Gurkha or Nepali force of some 600 held off for nearly a month a much better-equipped and larger British Army force. That honourable draw effectively started the relationship between the British Army and Nepal, when the Prime Minister at the time, Bhim Thapa, allowed the East India Company, as it was then, to start recruiting Gurkhas.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Debate between Lord Craig of Radley and Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton

Committee stage
Thursday 11th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 34. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, is a co-signatory and supporter of this amendment, but he had a clinical appointment that could not be changed.

What is immediately striking about the Bill is that it is an amending Bill to others for limitations and for the Human Rights Act, but it does not attempt to amend the overarching Armed Forces Act, though I believe that with a little ingenuity in drafting it could be done. In my amendment, I have suggested a post-enactment approach, because it would have been complicated to attempt to rewrite the first part of the Bill in a series of amendments. The reason for my approach is, of course, to bring all legislative matters of direct import for, and impact on, Her Majesty’s Armed Forces under the cover of the Armed Forces Act.

I have been advocating this approach for many years, going back to the problems that have arisen of conflicting legislation for the Armed Forces in their Acts and the Human Rights Act 1998. When that was being debated, I urged, without success, that human rights matters that the Armed Forces must follow were spelled out in their own legislation. Subsequently, I ensured that the Armed Forces covenant received its own part in the Armed Forces Act. Other legislation of direct impact on the Armed Forces and their discipline has been incorporated, in addition to the melding together of the three single-service discipline Acts into the current Armed Forces Act 2006.

As the services get smaller and are liable to be engaged in operations, their legislation under the umbrella of one Act not only makes for tidier legislation but enables those who have to live under and operate the laws that govern the Armed Forces, and to produce manuals of service law to guide individual commanders, to have a much easier task. Certainly for the particular topic of overseas operations, there is a cast-iron case for the relevant content of this Bill to be part of the Armed Forces Act 2006, just as the clauses on limitations and human rights are transcribed to the appropriate Acts.

This a probing amendment, but I am hoping for an acknowledgment of the benefit that this would bring. I beg to move.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee of course of my interests and say what a pleasure it is to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. He makes a very important point, which is tied to some of the points I am making, about how there has been, at times, an inconsistency in the way that we have dealt with defence matters through a series of different Acts. He made the powerful point that potentially it would help if we were to bring them together into a single Act.

I will speak to the very simple amendment in my name, which seeks to extend the territorial application of the Bill to include the Crown dependencies and overseas territories. In much the same vein as the amendment in the name of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, this would align the Bill with the Armed Forces Act, which this Bill references throughout. The Bill currently applies to a member of the regular or reserve forces, or a member of a British Overseas Territory force, as defined by Section 369(2) of the Armed Forces Act 2006, but it does not extend to the territories themselves. This creates ambiguity in its application and my amendment seeks to remove this. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for writing to me since I tabled this amendment. Her letter, a copy of which she has placed in the Library, addresses some, but not all, of my concerns.

I will take a moment to explain why this inconsistency concerns me. It stems, frankly, from a mistake I made as the Minister responsible for taking the last update of the Armed Forces Act through Parliament in 2016. At the time, I questioned why the territorial extent of the Bill applied to all overseas territories and Crown dependencies with the exception of Gibraltar. I was told that Gibraltar wanted to pass its own mirroring legislation and that officials did not anticipate a problem.