Armed Forces Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to follow the very eloquent maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen. His status as a former Cabinet Minister is demonstrated by the fact that he has two very distinguished Members of your Lordships’ House as his senior supporters on either side of him. One could assume that they are there to support the noble Lord. However, there is perhaps another interpretation—that they are there to control him.

I was privileged to work with the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, during the Northern Ireland peace process for many years in his different roles. He started off as Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office during the negotiations. At half-past three in the morning, when we were in the midst of very difficult and complicated discussions, he still retained that pleasant approach to people in very difficult circumstances. He did not lose his temper or become aggressive and was always able to calm the troubled waters. He moved on to greater distinction and became Secretary of State, having, I think, served as Secretary of State for Wales before and after that appointment, a distinction which he shares with his noble friend Lord Hain. This House greatly appreciates the presence of this great parliamentarian who has served the people of Wales with distinction for many decades. I have no doubt that we will all be enriched by his presence in your Lordships’ House in the coming years. He is extremely welcome. I also take this opportunity to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, on a very finely delivered address. That indicates that we now have two additional Members of our House who will serve Parliament very well.

A number of noble Lords have referred to the military covenant. During the passage of the previous Armed Forces Bill, amendments were passed to require regional Administrations to report annually to the Secretary of State for Defence on what they had done to implement the covenant. This was important because defence is a national issue; it will never become a devolved issue. It was important that the same level of service should be delivered in every part of the United Kingdom and that service personnel in any part of the United Kingdom should receive a level of service that was roughly equivalent. As many of the services are delivered by devolved functions, it was essential that that report be produced.

It is an absolute disgrace that when the first report was delivered to Parliament, the contribution from the Northern Ireland Executive consisted of no comment—no report—yet a very large number of people are dependent on services being delivered in that area. During the passage of the Bill, we warned that that sort of thing would happen. Although the military covenant continues to be delivered, that is largely because the relevant departments happen to be populated by Ministers who are sympathetic to it. However, that is not a permanent state of affairs and will change with time. I fear that this House will have to come back to this issue and it will be much more difficult to deal with at that time than it was during the passage of the previous Armed Forces Bill.

I turn to mesothelioma. No Member of this House has done more on that issue than the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who I am pleased to see in his place. Noble Lords will note that my colleagues in the other place tabled an amendment on Report which they subsequently withdrew after debate and assurances from the Minister. We have heard a number of noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords say today that a small number of people will still be excluded from the relevant provision. Let us not go through this again. Some people have been excluded for years and years. We know what the issue is. We know what the outcome of that is. Why do we not fix it once and for all and make sure that no one is excluded? We are not talking about a huge number of people, but a matter of natural justice is involved. I sincerely hope that in Committee the Minister will reassure us that all the personnel who are potential victims will be dealt with.

My next point concerns a matter to which many noble Lords have referred in this debate—namely, the ludicrous position in which we find ourselves as a nation whereby we are torturing ourselves and our Armed Forces through the litigation circus that is going on. Can one imagine what the legal consequences today would be of the bombardment of the Normandy beaches? We would be accused of blowing up French civilian property and injuring civilians. The captain who ordered the shelling would be charged with all sorts of things. The situation has run completely out of control. Ministers of the Crown have stood up in the other place and made speeches berating the fact that lawyers are chasing around looking for cases and pursuing members of the armed services. However, Parliament has voted money which means that they are being paid to do that. Opportunities for them to do that have been provided by Parliament. At the same time, many of the legal costs are far greater than the compensation received by many of the victims. Ministers know that and openly say so, but what solutions are coming forward? I say that no solutions are coming forward for the simple reason that this Parliament does not quite get what it means to sign a treaty. We are bound by all these treaties and we have signed far too many. They have led us to war and after war and we still face difficulties. I do not wish to see the United Kingdom armed services out of legal control; that would be totally wrong. Standards must be high and we must set examples, but that goes back to training. It also goes back, as many noble Lords have mentioned, to the legal framework within which the armed services operate.

We have taken this a stage too far. Take an example from Northern Ireland, where we have cases that are four decades old. We have a situation where there are still 30 detectives doing nothing but looking at the Saville case. What message are we sending to service personnel? They have saved hundreds and thousands of lives and come back from the battlefield broken in mind, body and spirit. Indeed, the person who now occupies the seat I held in the Northern Ireland Assembly lost both his legs in Afghanistan and suffered severe damage to his sight. What are we saying to those people when they are being chased after for years? I believe in the European Convention on Human Rights but courts there have interpreted it in ways that were never envisaged. It is not possible for such interpretations to sit right with a battlefield situation.

Nothing has come forward to fix this, because we are signed up to treaties—I do not think the Government know how to fix it. I hope the Minister will prove me and other noble Lords wrong. I do not know what the precise legal solution is but I know we need one. It will not be feasible to ask young people to go to war without one. Why do we send them to war if we are not prepared to carry through the logical consequences of doing so? We cannot authorise people to risk their lives and do what damage they can to the enemy and not follow that through. When they tell us that what they did is not their responsibility because this or that sergeant or captain ordered certain actions on the battlefield we cannot withdraw, wring our hands, and say that is terrible. The Armed Forces should not be left in this limbo: clarification is needed. We do not know when we might push them into battle once again. The world has never been more uncertain: dictators are acquiring huge amounts of weaponry; we have threats to the east and in the Far East; the Middle East is a mess. Any of these theatres could lead to conflict at any time and we have still not fixed this problem. With amendments, this legislation could be a vehicle for doing so.

Will the Minister address the question of mesothelioma and ensure that no one is left behind? The noble Lord, Lord West, talked about making snowballs with the asbestos in his vessel. That was a pastime in Harland and Wolff shipyard for years. Workers used to come home with white around their shoulders because they were covered in it. When I was Minister for Enterprise I set aside £180 million up until 2050 for cases we believed had yet to come forward. That is how long we are talking about. It is not simply the individuals who were there at the time who are at risk. They brought the material into their homes—their families may have done their washing and their children played around it. A new generation has this condition and, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, knows, little or no research into treatment is going on anywhere in the world. I sincerely hope this is one thing this legislation will fix once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

I will reflect on that point in the customary way and write to the noble Lord about that suggestion.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I am in favour of annual reporting and we pushed that hard last time. I mentioned that the Northern Ireland Executive have failed to make a report. Therefore, that opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise what is happening with a reserved and excepted function, which will never be devolved, is no longer available. I raised this at the last occasion and would be most grateful if the Minister will ask his department to look at it. I fear that it is only a matter of time before something goes wrong.

[Earl Howe]

I will, of course, take that away as well. I simply say that delivery of the covenant extends to the whole of the UK and that there is money to underpin that in Northern Ireland. The annual report includes input from the Welsh and Scottish Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive. It is important that we continue to work together to ensure that there is universal support for the Armed Forces wherever they work and live, and that must extend to Northern Ireland. In 2013, the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs assessed that over 93% of covenant measures applied in Northern Ireland. It is sensible that in 2016 we update our assessment of how the covenant is being delivered there and I assure the noble Lord that that will be a priority.

I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for not covering the other things I would have liked to cover. The noble Lords, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem and Lord Young of Norwood Green, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, referred to Clause 14 and I welcome their comments. My noble friend Lord Attlee referred to women in combat roles and the blurred distinction—as he put it—between the regular and the reserved services.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, referred to the recruitment of under-18s and in particular how they were missing out on education. The noble Baroness also spoke about Gulf War syndrome and a range of other subjects, including the commanding officer’s discretion to investigate sexual assault, and the independent oversight of service police. I promise to include these and other matters in letters to noble Lords which I will copy to everybody. I also hope to follow up the important comments made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth on service chaplains. The same applies to my noble friend Lord Lyell in answer to his questions about Gibraltar and the British Overseas Territories.

This is a good Bill. It is small but it does what it needs to do. I am greatly encouraged by the welcome that noble Lords have given it today and I look forward to Committee and the exchanges that that will undoubtedly bring. I beg to move.