Armed Forces Bill

Lord Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freeman (Con)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the three maiden speakers today. They were exemplary. I have some past experience; in the other place one of my tasks for the Conservative Government was to brief those who were making maiden speeches—to a slightly larger House, perhaps, and perhaps suffering greater nerves than those who made the three very professional speeches today. I address my two Conservative colleagues, who are most welcome, and I congratulate them on their most excellent speeches.

I want to make two brief observations and then ask a question of the Minister. My first observation is that the way in which your Lordships consider the legitimacy of Armed Forces operations is rather rigid, in the sense that we are now looking at provisions that were effectively put in place in 2006. After five years there was a review, but it was relatively perfunctory, and we are now looking forward to 2021. That seems to be slightly inflexible. There may be opportunities: for example, Orders in Council could be in due course tabled in your Lordships’ House as a Motion, so there could be some discussion. Compared with the operations in the private sector and the business sector—issues affecting business are debated regularly in your Lordships’ House—it seems to be a rather inflexible procedure. That is simply an observation.

My second observation concerns the liability of reserve forces for prosecution by Armed Forces authorities. I speak as the past president of the Reserve Forces Association. I thank the Minister for his briefing on the subject. A number of your Lordships met the Minister for a briefing on this Bill. The answers that the Minister very kindly gave at that briefing were, to my mind, very satisfactory, but there is some doubt, and I shall continue to monitor it. When Reserve Forces are off duty—they may be travelling to their depot, for example—there may be a period of time when they are not actually serving as Reserve Forces and their liability under military law is sometimes in doubt. But I thank the Minister for the briefing and do not intend to press him.

My question refers to the protection of our Armed Forces abroad, under the judicial proceedings that might occur in the country in which they have been operating. There has been some progress, and the Minister kindly brought your Lordships up to date on the subject. But I wonder whether he could bring us finally up to date as to the legitimate protection afforded to British forces who find themselves persecuted or possibly charged by overseas legal authorities for actions committed in the course of conflict. I am clear that the proceedings should be under UK or British auspices and back in this country.