Military Personnel Overseas: Vaccinations

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

To come to the noble Baroness’s last question first, my understanding is that the Ministry of Defence will ensure that every adult is offered their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by 19 July, in line with HMG’s accelerated vaccination timelines. Indeed, by that date, many will have completed both doses. I am unaware of the situation in relation to the cohort to which she refers. I undertake to inquire into that and, if I can ascertain further information, I shall write to her.

The noble Baroness asked an important question about percentages of vaccinations given. The figures I have—again, these are as at 28 June 2021—are that: for UK Armed Forces personnel on active operations, 95% have received the first dose, 74% have received the second dose and 2% have refused a dose. As at 28 June for Armed Forces personnel based overseas, excluding operations, my information is that 73% have had a first dose and 35% have had a second dose.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

I ask the Minister a related question regarding proof of vaccination for military personnel. As a former CDS whose medical data is still held by the Defence Medical Services, I declare a personal interest. The Minister will be aware that the medical data of defence personnel, including proof of vaccination, is held in a way that is inaccessible via the NHS app. I accept that a highly complex work-around is available, but only to those who are extremely technically gifted. When will this significant disadvantage be resolved?

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 26th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, it may be presumptuous of me spontaneously to offer, on behalf of all gallant Lords, a sincere thank you to the Minister for the good news she has brought today. I can probably extend that to all those who are involved on operations, who are in command of those on operations or who train them beforehand. Frankly, the idea that we might have sent soldiers, sailors and airmen to depart on operations with even an inkling that, in certain circumstances, they might have enjoyed some sort of exemption from prosecution for war crimes is fundamentally opposed to what makes us what we are and gives our Armed Forces moral authority. It is absolutely fundamental to our sense of service. The concession in the other place that the Minister has reported is fundamental to our ability to retain the moral authority of that service.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, like noble and gallant and noble and learned Lords, I welcome the Minister’s further concession. One of the most welcome things in the final stages of this Bill is that we are gradually beginning to see its most egregious bits removed. We have lost Clause 12; this was most welcome. A very welcome amendment was tabled in the Commons, although it did not go far enough. However, it began to pave the way for the amendment brought again by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, which the Minister has agreed to accept. This is extremely welcome.

I will not rehearse the arguments made by other noble Lords about the International Criminal Court. I merely want to say that we on these Benches support Amendment A1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. We also look forward to the government amendment in lieu and to seeing that war crimes—as well as genocide, torture and crimes against humanity—are excluded from the presumption against prosecution. This will tidy up the Bill in a most welcome way and, hopefully, will lead us to a piece of legislation that does what we need it to do and what our service personnel and veterans need it to do.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I start by adding my thanks to the Minister for the time and trouble she has taken since Committee to listen to the concerns that my noble friend Lord Dannatt and the other movers of this amendment, of whom I am one, have sought to address. The Government have argued, and no doubt will continue to argue, that what we are trying to achieve is both unnecessary and dangerous. I am unconvinced and I shall try to explain why.

In her response in Committee, the Minister pointed to the mechanisms and processes already in place to support service personnel and veterans. There are indeed both official and charitable structures set up for this purpose; they do a great deal of excellent work, as today’s ministerial Statement made clear. But as I tried to explain in Committee, the situation of those accused of criminal activities and subject to the corresponding and prolonged investigations is particularly difficult. I pointed out that the stresses on these individuals and their families are profound and enduring.

These people are not just accused of a crime; they are charged with trampling underfoot the values and ethos that are an essential element of the special body of which they have been a trusted part. They are suspected of betraying their comrades and bringing them into disrepute. I ask noble Lords to imagine what sort of impact all of that has on people who are members of such a close and unique community.

It is alas true that in some cases the opprobrium will be deserved, but we also know that in such circumstances the innocent and the guilty will suffer alike. Even a subsequent and unequivocal demonstration of innocence will not entirely remove the shadow from their lives or allow them to feel quite the same ever again.

Given such horrendous and, in some cases, undeserved consequences, is it so unreasonable to seek a special degree of support for these people? Is it unreasonable to ask that the requirement for and processes to deliver such support should be codified? After all, Part 1 of this Bill is itself mostly about codifying procedures that nearly everyone agrees a competent prosecuting authority would follow in any case. If these need to be set out in the Bill, why not the processes for ensuring the appropriate source of support for service personnel and veterans? To argue in favour of the former and against the latter would strike me as strangely inconsistent. Just to be clear, I do not believe that defence information notices constitute adequate codification.

The dangers that the Government seem to think lurk within this amendment apparently derive from the legal rights it would afford to those it seeks to protect. The accused could sue the Government if they thought that they had been inadequately supported—and who is to say what level of support should be considered adequate? The only beneficiaries, it appears, would be the legal profession.

Well, my first response would be that if the Government failed to provide the appropriate support, then they should be liable. It seems that in this day and age, we are keen to afford justiciable rights to just about everyone—except our service men and women. As to the definition of adequacy, I entirely accept that Amendment 14 as worded may not have adequately circumscribed this, but is it really beyond the wit of government lawyers to come up with a form of words that would do the trick? Surely, the concept of reasonableness and the appropriate kinds of test are not alien to our legal system.

The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, has said that this amendment would do nothing to prevent future Shiners, and I agree with him. I also agree wholeheartedly that tackling the difficulties caused by the extraterritorial application of the Human Rights Act is essential. None of this, though, obviates the need to support those who need our help.

The Government’s argument appears, in essence, to be, “We don’t think this amendment is necessary because we already do what it suggests, but we’re rather afraid of being sued for not doing what the amendment proposes.” This does not strike me as a tenable position. I urge the Government to think again.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I speak in this debate to support the amendment moved by my noble friends. I do so because it is the closest to resolving, or at least ameliorating, the problem—and it is a problem, as many have rehearsed. It is essentially a practical one, relating to training, leadership, command oversight, operational reporting and improved investigative capacity and competence.

I fear that I remain convinced that the resort to legal exceptionalism which this Bill contemplates, and which appears to have initiated so much of the debate in the House, is an ill-considered course of action. It will make our service men and women more, not less, exposed to the challenges of the law. Law, in the context of this debate, is not simply the legislative framework within which war is conducted; it has become a weapon of that war. In the jargon, it is a new vector of attack. By way of emphasising my point, while this Bill has been maturing, we have seen the product of an extended review of the country’s security, defence, development and foreign policy. The results have been the integrated review paper and the companion MoD document, Global Britain in a Competitive Age.

These are both excellent pieces of work and speak to the radically different character of future war. At the heart of both documents are the themes of systemic and enduring competition between nations, between political systems, across multiple spheres. The documents emphasise the lack of clarity over where the threshold of conflict sits, the impossibility of differentiating between peace and war, home and away, friend and foe. They speak of the far greater reliance, in future, on technical advantage, automated processes, autonomous systems. They move the comprehension of conflict beyond the recent sense that it is periodic, adversarial, away fixtures.

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My noble friend asks a very perceptive question. We are satisfied that, despite a reduction to 72,500, we still have a very significant cohort of professional military. We are satisfied that we can discharge all the obligations falling upon us, whether in conflict, peacekeeping, or MACA requests for domestic resilience at home.

We have seen, through the response by the Armed Forces to the Covid pandemic, what tremendous respect and affection the public have for our Armed Forces, and I hope that that will endure. There may be other occasions where we deploy our Armed Forces on MACA tasks or other civil support tasks at home, and that will reinforce not only the professionalism they possess but the affection with which the public rightly regard them

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB) [V]]

I draw attention to my interests in the register. As our Armed Forces move from a platform-centric approach to capability to one focused on technological advantage, it is ever more important to connect the operational requirement to the best available technology quickly. In the world of romance, we would be advocating the need for a speed dating agency.

Previously, the romance has failed because the potential match is broken between the cautious process of defence procurement and the monopolistic position of defence industry primes. The relationship has in fact been an obstacle to the rapid achievement of technological advantage. So I ask the Minister: which part of the new defence industrial strategy establishes the dating agency? Who is in charge of it and how does the wider world of technical opportunity sign up to it?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I say to the noble and gallant Lord that I love the analogy; it is very apposite. He identifies an important point. He is aware that there is constant consultation and discussion within the MoD with our single services about what their needs are. In the past, the blockage has been in translating need into the production of kit or equipment. This new strategy makes it clear that there will now be a much smoother, clearer progression. The early engagement with industry is critical to establishing that we have identified what the single services want—and then we have to make progress in delivering that as efficiently and as swiftly as possible.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I can only commend my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on two of the most powerful, if terrifying, contributions to this Bill’s proceedings so far. In particular, I shall be having nightmares about their projections for the potential dissonance between varying international approaches to the definition of autonomous weapons and the way in which their deployment and development matches, or does not match, traditional approaches to humanitarian law.

Regarding the Bill, my noble friend has a very good point. He makes a specific observation about the fact that a drone operator in the UK will suffer many of the traumas and risks of a traditional soldier in the field but, on the face of it, that is not covered by this legislation at all. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that in particular, but also to the broader questions of risk—not just legal risk in a defensive way to our personnel but ethical and moral risk to all of us. In this area of life, like every other, the technology moves apace, but the law, politics, transparency, public discourse and even ethics seem to be a few paces behind.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow on from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, who always seems to be a great source of common sense on complex moral issues. I am similarly delighted to support the amendment in the name of my one-time boss, the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. I will not seek to repeat his arguments as to why this amendment is important, but rather to complement his very strong justification with my own specific thoughts and nuances.

I will start with some general comments on the Bill, as this is my only contribution at this stage. At Second Reading I made my own views on this Bill quite clear. I felt that it missed the main issues regarding the challenges of Lawfare. Specifically, I felt that the better route to reducing the problem of vexatious claims was not through resort to legal exceptionalism, but rather rested on a series of more practical measures relating to such things as investigative capacity, quality and speed; better training; improved operational record keeping; more focused leadership, especially in the critical area of command oversight; and a greater duty of care by the chain of command. On this latter, I wholly support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Dannatt.

Having listened to the arguments deployed in Committee, I am struck by the seeming inability of even this sophisticated Chamber to reach a common view as to whether the many provisions of this Bill offer enhanced protections or increased perils for our servicemen and women. This causes me grave concern. How much more likely is it that our servicemen and women—those whose primary desire is to operate within the law—will be confused; and how much more likely is it that are our enemies—those who want to exploit the law for mischief—will be encouraged?

I hold to the view that the law, in any formulation, cannot be fashioned into a weapon of decisive advantage in our bid to rid our people of vexatious claims. Rather, the law will increasingly be exploited by our enemies as a vector of attack, both to frustrate our ability to use appropriate force and to find novel ways of accusing our servicemen and women of committing illegal acts. The solution to this problem is a mixture of functional palliatives and better legal preparedness. This amendment addresses one element of this preparedness.

As we have already heard, one area of new legal challenge will undoubtedly be in the realm of novel technologies, particularly those which employ both artificial intelligence and machine learning to give bounded autonomy to unmanned platforms, which in turn have the ability to employ lethal force. We are currently awaiting the imminent outcome of the integrated review, and we understand that a defence command paper will herald a new era of technological investment and advancement: one that will enable a significant reduction in manned platforms as technology permits elements of conflict to be subordinated to intelligent drones and armed autonomous platforms.

However—and this is the basic argument for this amendment—the personal liability for action in conflict to be legal will not cease, although it may become considerably more opaque. We must therefore ask whether we have yet assessed the moral, legal, ethical and alliance framework and protocols within which these new systems will operate. Have we yet considered and agreed the command and control relationships, authorities and delegations on which will rest the legal accountability for much new operational activity?

Personally, I have a separate and deep-seated concern that a fascination with what is technically feasible is being deployed by the Government, consciously or unconsciously, primarily as the latest alchemy by which defence can be made affordable. It is being deployed without properly understanding whether its true utility will survive the moral and legal context in which it will have to operate. I therefore offer my full support to this amendment, in the hope that it will assist us in getting ahead of the problem. The alternative is suddenly waking up to the fact that we have created Armed Forces that are both exquisite and unusable in equal measure.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Browne, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, for bringing forward this important amendment and debate. I understand my noble friend Lord Browne’s concerns about the mismatch between the future-focused integrated review, which has had long delays but will be hopefully published next week, and the legislation we have in front of us.

Technology is not only changing the kinds of threats we face but changing warfare and overseas operations in general. In Committee in the other place, Clive Baldwin of Human Rights Watch neatly summed this up by suggesting that

“we are seeing a breakdown in what is the beginning and the end of an armed conflict, what is the battlefield and what decisions are made in which country … The artificial distinction of an overseas operation with a clear beginning, a clear theatre and a clear end is one that is very much breaking down.”—[Official Report, Commons, Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill Committee, 6/10/20; col. 67.]

How is this reflected in the Bill?

When the Prime Minister gave his speech on the integrated review last year, he rightly said that “technologies …will revolutionise warfare” and announced a new centre dedicated to AI and an RAF fighter system that will harness AI and drone technology. This sounds impressive but, as my noble friend Lord Browne said, as military equipment gets upgraded, we do not know how the Government plan to upgrade legal frameworks for warfare and what this means in terms of legal protection for our troops.

We must absolutely tackle vexatious claims and stop the cycle of reinvestigations, but how will claims against drone operators or personnel operating new technology be handled? Do those service personnel who operate UAVs not deserve to be protected? And how will legal jeopardy for our troops be avoided?

As new technology develops, so too must our domestic and international frameworks. The final report of the US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence stated that the US commitment to international humanitarian law

“is longstanding, and AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems will not change this commitment.”

Do the Government believe the same?

I would also like to highlight the serious impact on troops who might not be overseas, but who are operating drones abroad. A former drone pilot told the Daily Mirror:

“The days are long and hard and can be mentally exhausting. And although UAV pilots are detached from the real battle, it can still be traumatic, especially if you are conducting after-action surveillance.”


The RUSI research fellow Justin Bronk also said that, as drone operators switched daily between potentially lethal operations and family life, this could be extremely draining and psychologically taxing. What mental health and pastoral support is given to these troops currently? Drone operators may not be physically overseas, but they are very much taking part in overseas operations. With unmanned warfare more common in future conflicts, I would argue that failing to include those operations in the Bill may cause service personnel issues down the line.

I would like to hear from the Minister how this legislation will keep up to date with how overseas operations operate, and whether she is supportive of a review along the lines of Amendment 32—and, if not, why not?

Integrated Review: New Ships

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

My noble friend raises an important point, which effectively goes to the heart of why we have Royal Naval assets and what we think their primary purpose is. I reassure him that we are actively expanding the model of permanent forward deployment of ships such as “Montrose”. For example, HMS “Forth”, like her predecessor “Clyde”, is currently forward deployed to the Falkland Islands; a further Batch 2 offshore patrol vessel “Medway” is operating in the Caribbean region; and the recent operations of HMS “Trent” in the Mediterranean and Atlantic have been centred on our permanent joint operating base in Gibraltar. We intend to build on this model in the coming months and it is a key consideration for the role of the new Type 31.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I draw attention to my relevant interests in the register. Despite the very welcome uplift in defence spending announced last year, the affordability of much of the new capability promised, such as new ships, rests on the need to retire current capabilities quite quickly—some arguably prematurely. Will the Minister inform the House of when such decisions will be made and which capabilities will be affected?

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

My Lords, in the timetabling of shipbuilding and the estimated dates for taking delivery and for vessels being in service, a close eye is kept on the need to maintain our key operational obligations. That eye is vigilant and I reassure the noble and gallant Lord that the issues to which he refers are very much at the forefront of MoD thinking. We consult our industrial partners frequently to ensure a smooth transition.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

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

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I sense that no-one who speaks on the Bill today will not have the interests of British service men and women at heart, and that is certainly my primary consideration. Undoubtedly, the situation that many service people have found themselves in over recent years in respect of vexatious claims absolutely demands government action. I seriously worry, however, that the political desire to resolve this problem has primarily resulted in a wish to change the law. My worry is twofold. First, I believe that this issue is a practical not a legal one. Secondly, I worry that legal solutions may bring with them unforeseen consequences, some of which will be absolutely contrary to the stated intent. I will summarise my views in five points.

The first is context. As we have heard, much of the source of the current problem has nothing to do with shortcomings in the legal framework. Rather, it is due to the Government’s inability to properly resource adequate investigative capacity and a weakness—indeed a failure, I admit—of the whole chain of command to ensure that investigations have been pursued with vigour and integrity. As a priority, we should correct these deficiencies.

My second point concerns the legal framework itself and the dangers of exceptionalism. It is true that the framework is a complex aggregation of historical conventions and both international and national law, but it is an acceptance of this evolved framework and a determination to function within it that gives our Armed Forces both their legitimacy and their moral authority. To seek to legislate to make ourselves exceptions to this framework, even in cleverly construed legal ways, produces multiple risks: to our international standing; to our reputation as a trusted ally; to the true status of our moral authority; to the justification of reprisals from our enemies; and ultimately, as many have mentioned, to the unquantifiable risk that our people will be brought before the International Criminal Court rather than our own national ones.

My third point concerns effective training. As I have said, the legal framework for the use of force and wider conduct of operations is complex. It is a challenge to convert this framework into a set of rules and procedures that are easy to both teach and comprehend. Our Armed Forces have, over the years, developed some very effective means of simplifying the legal framework and of employing sophisticated methods of judgmental training in how to operate within it. The aim has always been to make what is legal and what is morally proper also that which is natural and instinctive.

Therefore, to introduce even greater complexity into the legal framework, complexity that at least appears to differentiate between the gravity of certain acts—between murder, torture, rape and sexual violence for example—all of which are illegal, seriously prejudices the intuitive understanding of service men and women. I have heard it said that the Bill presents some external presentational challenges. It would also create some significant and potentially dangerous internal ones.

My fourth point is about command responsibility and leadership. Recent experience clearly shows that, particularly when operations are intensive, prolonged and conducted from remote and isolated bases, the requirement for strong leadership and command oversight, while more difficult, is even more vital. I do not believe that the law has ways of holding the chain of command to account, but I am absolutely certain that the chain of command cannot distance itself from the responsibility to actively mitigate the conditions that can contribute to individual failings. I am interested to know what lessons we have learned about this for the future and what action we intend to take.

My final thought on this issue is more esoteric. In the military, we often say that the nature of warfare endures, but the character of warfare changes. Perhaps one recent facet of this changing character has been the advent of lawfare. This represents a new vector of attack, where our enemies will exploit our vulnerabilities to delegitimise our use of force and the moral authority we hold. If our response to this threat is a recourse, however well intentioned, to legal exceptionalism, I fear we will actually be showing weakness. We will risk surrendering our moral advantage and our enemies will be encouraged, not deterred.

I will finish where I started. No one who speaks today will not have the interests of our servicemen and women at heart, but my strong view is that we will not legislate ourselves out of this problem through amendments to the law. There is a very strong chance that, regardless of good intentions, we may make things worse for the very people we are trying to protect.

Armed Forces: Covid-19 Deployment

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB) [V]]

In times of nationwide civil emergency, the two most relevant military capabilities are a pool of disciplined manpower and a system of command and control, optimised for turning strategic aspirations into co-ordinated tactical action. A recurring lesson from past emergencies, from foot and mouth to Olympic security, indicates that this latter experience is not well understood by Government. Can the Minister confirm to the House that the military’s expertise in command and control is being properly harnessed?

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

I would like to reassure the noble and gallant Lord that it is. He will understand, from his own knowledge, both the level and extent to which the MoD has provided advice to the highest levels of government. Much of that advice has been welcomed by government precisely because of the attributes that the noble and gallant Lord identified in relation to the MoD and Armed Forces’ experience of command and delivery.

HMS “Queen Elizabeth”

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I am unable to comment in detail as to future deployments for the very same reasons that I am unable to comment in detail on the immediate deployment of HMS “Queen Elizabeth”. He identifies an important point. The south Atlantic is strategically significant and is becoming more so. That is an aspect of our global approach that we keep under constant review.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB) [V]]

The Minister will be aware that the proposed deployment of HMS “Queen Elizabeth” was conceived when there were many justified concerns about the overall size of the surface fleet and its ability to meet the Royal Navy’s standing maritime tasks at home and around the world. Can she therefore confirm what risks are likely to be taken against those standing tasks to provide adequate escorts for the deployment of HMS “Queen Elizabeth” next year?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble and gallant Lord will be aware that, in contemplating any deployment, we make an extensive and robust assessment of risk in all respects. That is what we do at the moment and what we shall continue to do.

Armed Forces: Racism and Diversity

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie [V]]

I listened with great interest to the point raised by my noble friend. I have no specific information about the appointment of chaplains or the backgrounds from which they are appointed. I shall investigate and write further to him.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I have never thought it entirely fair to hold the Armed Forces to account at an individual level for being a mirror image of the society from which they are drawn, with all the imperfections that implies. It is an inevitability. However, I absolutely agree that, in institutional terms, our Armed Forces should strive to be exemplars of the very best that can be achieved in values and standards. Can the Minister therefore inform the House what has been achieved since 2016 in policy terms in the areas of bullying, harassment, discrimination and opportunities for women?

[Baroness Goldie [V]]

I reassure the noble and gallant Lord that various initiatives and programmes have been deployed within the Armed Forces to cover these very areas of concern. If we want to prevent this unacceptable behaviour, we must create a culture within our civilian and military workforce that represents, includes and celebrates all elements of the society that we defend. Within the MoD, we need to institutionalise anti-racism.