Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, in addition to adding to the tributes to the noble Earl, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, on his persistence in trying to persuade the Government to hold this debate—the first one in which I have taken part whose title comprises three separate subjects.

I declare an interest as a former council member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, because the starting point of my contribution is the conclusion reached in the most recent publication in its Adelphi series, entitled Harsh Lessons: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Changing Charter of War, in which, as a former soldier, I found it sad to read:

“In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States and its allies came extremely close to strategic defeat, due to inadequate leadership, reconstruction efforts, political strategy, military strategy, operational concepts, tactics and equipment. These shortfalls combined with failures, at every level, to adapt quickly enough to unforeseen circumstances, provided opportunities that were exploited by insurgents and militias”.


These are harsh and sobering words, particularly in the context of today’s uncertain world, when the United Kingdom, whose Armed Forces are now weaker than at any time in the last 200 years, has embarked on leaving the Union of its closest geographical allies.

The other interest that I must declare is as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, in which capacity I have already voiced my concern that—despite the lessons of the imperfect 2010 strategic defence and security review, and in defiance of their undertaking to base SDSR 2015 on the national security strategy—the Government published both at the same time. I submit that, in the light of Brexit, SDSR 2015 is now out of date and ought to be reviewed. Of course, we remain a member of NATO, but it is feeling the draught of President Trump’s variance from the long-accepted wisdom that the provision of a large NATO commitment is vital for the security of the United States, and not merely a favour to Europe.

The most visible evidence of that membership is the 2% of GDP that we guarantee to spend on defence—to the inadequacy of which, in real terms, I am not surprised that so many noble Lords have drawn attention. I note, too, that, in this year’s Military Balance, the IISS has suggested that spending amounted only to 1.98%, because the actual amount is blurred by pensions and other associated, rather than actual, costs. In this connection I must repeat what I have said many times in this House: namely, that, like the noble Lord, Lord West, I regret the coalition Government’s decision to lay the cost of the nuclear deterrent on the defence budget. I have also mentioned Field Marshal Lord Carver’s two definitions of affordability: whether you can afford something, and whether you can afford to give up what you have to give up in order to afford it. I suggest that the question of whether you can afford to give up capabilities such as the size of the Army or the number of surface ships needs to be re-examined in the context of today’s uncertainties.

Currently, the West, including both NATO and the EU, are preoccupied with the production of cohesive responses to the various challenges being posed by Russia. In theory, this should encourage European states, including the United Kingdom, to increase their focus on defence, including defence spending. However, rather than just spending more, they need to spend more smartly. Boosting R&D and equipment spending, and driving industrial collaboration, will prove, in the long term, to be much more useful than simply aiming to meet arbitrary financial targets.

Post Brexit, I hope that the United Kingdom will still be able to play a part in EU security structures. Europe’s defence R&D has long been fragmented, with only minimal co-ordination and collaboration. But, in light of the European Commission’s plan—as part of the European Defence Action Plan—to boost defence procurement and establish a European defence fund for defence technology and equipment R&D, I hope that we will also maintain access to EU-wide science and technology developments.

The only word one can use with certainty about the future is “uncertainty”. Currently, the NSS Joint Committee is conducting an inquiry into the national cybersecurity strategy, in the context of which I have been thinking about the whole concept of deterrence, to which cyber adds a new factor. Deterrence must have a strategic goal of preventing crisis, not just responding to it. But what is required to wage deterrence today is more complex than in the days of the uncertain stability of the Cold War. It includes not only operational analysis, strategy development, planning and execution, but understanding and achieving the integration of hard and soft power. In addition, Governments need to understand the potential uncertain regional and global effect that deterrent actions may have on actors other than the adversary, including allies. More significantly, the rise of non-state threats and the pursuit of offensive cybercapabilities and long-range precision conventional capabilities by some nuclear-armed states bring further risk and uncertainly to the efficacy of nuclear deterrence.

In addition to nuclear and cyber, we must not forget that conventional levers play an essential part in promoting our defence and security interests. As so much has happened in the interim, it is easy to forget the so-called revolution in military affairs and its presumption that,

“greatly improved surveillance, communications and precision-strike weapons would produce superior knowledge of the enemy and better-targeted and more effective strikes and manoeuvre, allowing a modernised and networked force to defeat a larger but less modernised one”.

That was announced only in 2001, before the burgeoning of wars among the people. Sadly, it will be some time before British forces are modernised sufficiently for our contribution to NATO’s readiness action plan to allow a credible full-time spectrum combat capability against a peer competitor such as Russia.

Returning to my earlier point about the size of the Army, any plans to increase the size of the forces we can deploy overseas—and the speed with which they can deploy—as many other noble Lords have pointed out, are more likely to be limited by personnel numbers than equipment availability. If we are to meet the challenges to the international rules-based order, and increase our preparedness to satisfy defence and security interests, I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Hennessy that we should take a cold, hard look at the future, starting with an examination of whether the SDSR 2015 is fit for purpose.

Brexit: Armed Forces and Diplomatic Service

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, there has been some criticism of some recent appointments to the House, but having just had the pleasure of hearing his maiden speech, no one can be in any doubt of the qualities and qualifications—including a sense of humour—that my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery brings to our business. In true tri-service spirit, as a solider I am delighted to welcome another ex-serviceman to these Benches, noting that in choosing a naval career he was following a most distinguished family line. What makes his choice of today’s debate to make his maiden speech most appropriate is his particular knowledge of commercial shipping. The noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, never misses an opportunity to raise the fragility of the Navy’s small ship strength but, in the context of controlling our own borders, my noble friend speaks with authority on equally concerning fragilities, namely the numbers of fishing protection and Border Force resources. On behalf of the House, I welcome my noble friend, congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech and assure him that we all look forward to many further contributions from him in the future.

I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, for obtaining this important debate. I noted his emphasis on global aspects in his excellent introduction. I propose to concentrate on the Armed Forces in a reflective as much as a looking-forward mode, as other speakers have concentrated on that. I could not help reflecting that in 1989 our contribution to the defence of Europe was based on the army of 55,000 that we were required to maintain in Germany under the terms of the 1956 Brussels treaty. The end of the Cold War saw the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the war-fighting organisation of the Soviet Union. However, it did not see the end of NATO, although at the time I well remember many people suggesting that NATO should go too because, as the war-fighting organisation of the West, it was the one organisation that Russia could not join, and if we were going to welcome Russia into the family of European nations it was essential that it was able to join all the organisations connected with it. Warsaw Pact countries were given the opportunity to join NATO and, indeed, many of them have.

The end of the Cold War saw an uneasy situation in which, initially, I well remember people suggesting that the United Nations should take a lead. Indeed, thinking back to the intervention in former Yugoslavia, the OSCE led on that. I well remember the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, being its distinguished envoy. The OSCE, as a Chapter VIII organisation under the United Nations charter, is equivalent to the OAS and the OAU. As far as European defence was concerned, its main benefit was that it included the United States. Some wished that NATO might have gone, to enable Russia to join more closely in European defence, but others felt that America’s presence was an absolutely crucial reason why NATO should remain. In fact NATO was unnecessary because, in OSCE terms, America was already involved, but of course, as we all know, the United Nations is not really a capable organisation for defending Europe, not least because of the presence of Russia on the Security Council. I well remember being a member of a committee formed by Kofi Annan, then the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, which tried to strengthen the military committee in the United Nations and make it more like what the founding fathers of the United Nations had envisaged—in other words, being the co-ordinating organisation for the use of armed force throughout the world.

My worry about the present situation was touched on by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig. We have very strong defence relationships with individual countries in Europe but, when you look at what is actually going on to co-ordinate everything, you see that it is co-ordinated currently by NATO, not Europe. A number of noble Lords have already commented on the uncertainty facing NATO’s future after Mr Trump becomes President. Echoing what others have said, I hope that, whatever happens with Brexit, nothing is done to destroy that very close relationship which has been established with other European countries, because we are a European country and the defence of Europe includes us. We must do nothing to risk being excluded from the planning that is an essential part of that defence. If we do so, the impact will be even worse than anyone imagines at the moment.

Armed Services: Claims

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I join noble Lords in thanking my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood for obtaining this debate, and congratulate him on the masterly way in which he introduced it.

I note that my noble friend’s Motion uses the words “armed conflict”, not “war”. I must say that after 41 years in the Army I was horrified by the loose use of the word “war” by Messrs Brown, Blair and Bush when declaring “war on terror” and “war on drugs”. I was pleased when Professor Sir Michael Howard reminded us that the Romans had two words for war: “bellum”, which was the lawful use of force between states, and “guerra”, which was the unlawful use of force within a state. What we are faced with in armed conflict at present is often described as “asymmetric warfare” but I prefer a phrase that was used by General Sir Rupert Smith, who commanded our division in the first Gulf War, of “war amongst the people” because it expresses most vividly the problems that our current commanders in armed conflict face, particularly overseas. I want to limit my contribution to making a plea on behalf of all commanders who are likely to face that sort of situation.

Like my noble friends in this House, the armed conflict that I was involved in, including in Northern Ireland, was more certain than it is now. The laws of war, as they are often referred to, were drawn up for conflict between clearly identifiable armed forces fighting on a clearly defined battlefield. They do not apply, though, because there is no such thing as a battlefield in wars among the people. I found when commanding troops in Northern Ireland that it was essential that all ranks were quite clear on where they stood in regard to the law if they were to act within the law. The yellow card regarding opening fire that was issued at the time gave a clear description of that.

At present, though, the fact that such a number of claims are being made against armed services personnel shows that not only have the Armed Forces not been completely clear on where they stood in regard to the law, particularly human rights law, neither have the lawyers understood the conditions in which the armed services have to act. There is no doubt that the conditions and circumstances of armed conflict differ from times of peace. The application of human rights law in particular, which has been very ably covered by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope, especially the definitions in Article 15, emphasises that difficulty.

Commanders must be completely clear about the legal position regarding operational decisions that they are going to take. I very much took the reference made by my noble and learned friend Lord Brown and my noble friend Lord Dannatt to the danger of becoming risk-averse. You cannot have commanders made risk-averse by something that is not in their control. My noble and gallant friend Lord Boyce recognised this at the start of the second Gulf War when he sought a decision on whether the invasion of Iraq was legal and therefore whether those taking part were likely to be arraigned as war criminals.

I ask the Minister to note the importance of any Government who are committing UK armed services personnel to armed conflict abroad ensuring that the legal position is made abundantly clear to all ranks involved. To my mind, that is the best way of preventing the shameful example we have had of the performance of some unscrupulous lawyers in pursuing them, particularly in Iraq.

Chagos Islands

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, what has happened is a rollover of the current agreement, which had a break clause at the end of 2016. By not breaking silence, as it is officially termed, we are allowing that rollover to take place for the next 20 years. We declared the marine protected area that the noble Lord referred to in 2010. It is highly valued by scientists from many countries. They consider it a global reference site for marine conservation in an ocean that is already heavily overfished. We are aware that some concerns have been raised about the motives for the creation of the marine protected area; in other words, that it might have been designed to thwart future resettlement. I categorically repudiate that suggestion. We are very serious about conserving that area. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any employment prospects that could arise from this.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as vice-chairman of the All-Party Group on the Chagos Islands. If the United States Government say—and have said for a long time—that they are not opposed to resettlement and that the security concerns can be easily managed, what security concerns do the United Kingdom Government have that overrule and override the American Government’s decision, which was repeated as recently as earlier this year when President Obama had discussions with the then Prime Minister?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is important to understand that security was not the only consideration that governed the decision that has been made. There are no restrictions on applications by Chagossians to be employed on Diego Garcia. The United States has said that it is committed to hiring qualified candidates as positions become available. Indeed, the contractor is required to recruit people from Mauritius and the Seychelles, provided they meet the necessary requirements. We are aware that some Chagossians have been offered positions working for the US contractor on Diego Garcia over the past two years, but these were declined because of local conditions, which are pretty basic, and the rates of pay.

Defence: Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, as time is short, I do not propose to say anything about the possession and deployment of Trident, which in the current party-political scene seems something of a given anyway. I have always been, and remain, a multilateralist but admit to having been influenced in my thinking by something that my late boss, Field Marshal Lord Carver, said during the discussions about the possible improvement of Polaris by Chevaline in 1972: “There are two definitions of the word affordable—can you afford something or can you afford to give up what you have got to give up in order to afford it?”.

I note that this debate is a precursor to the vote on Monday in the other place on the like-for-like renewal of the full fleet of four nuclear submarines, described in the 2015 SDSR as,

“vital to our national security … needed, in order to give assurance that at least one will always be at sea, undetected, on a Continuous At Sea Deterrent patrol”,

and,

“a national endeavour … one of the largest government investment programmes, equivalent in scale to Crossrail or High Speed 2”.

The SDSR maintained that the estimated cost of £31 billion, plus a contingency of £10 billion, could be found from the guaranteed 2% of GDP. But all that has changed in the past two weeks, because following the Brexit vote the value of the pound has dropped dramatically, which will lead inevitably to a drop in GDP, and has led already to doubts being raised about the affordability of High Speed 2.

That brings me on to two questionable assertions in the 24 March MoD policy paper, UK Nuclear Deterrence: What You Need to Know, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. The first is:

“The UK has policies and capabilities to deal with the wide range of threats we currently face or might face in the future”.

The second is:

“The investment required to maintain our deterrent will not come at the expense of the conventional capabilities our armed forces need”.

Two of the main planks of the Leave campaign during the referendum were that we would regain control over our borders and, therefore, independence—whatever that means. Really? With three Border Force vessels and the limited number of Royal Navy surface ships to which the noble Lord, Lord West, continually draws the attention of the House? I must admit that I wondered who was deluding whom when I heard the Minister announce on Monday that we were sending two companies to Estonia and one to Poland. How on earth can anyone know what threats demanding a lesser response than a weapon system capable of taking out Moscow we may face in the future?

If lack of sufficient financial resources, based on 2% of GDP at the time that the SDSR was written, has already limited the strength of our conventional forces, as has been pointed out many times by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig and others, how can anyone be certain that a reduced GDP will not require even further limitation if full fleet replacement is the Government’s order of the day?

That brings me to governance. Starting at the bottom end, as it were, I have lost count of the number of times noble Lords have, in recent years, complained about the lack of proper impact assessments accompanying legislation. With the notable exception of the Canadian Governor of the Bank of England, no one appears to have done any contingency planning on the referendum, or bothered to research just how deeply our pipes and plumbing are buried into Europe in a multiplicity of subjects. Last week came Chilcot, with its devastating exposure of the deliberate disregard of the norms of governance during the Iraq war. Now, the other place is expected to make a decision that will affect the nation’s military capabilities, both conventional and nuclear, without the benefit of any known assessment of what the financial impact of Brexit will be.

I acknowledge all the responsibilities on government that were so clearly enunciated by the Minister, but I find the speed of all this both breathtaking and bewildering. Where is the proof that this decision needs to be taken on Monday, bearing in mind the continuing uncertainty over the date by which the submarines need to be replaced and the spiralling costs of doing so? Meanwhile, we are faced with a number of threats to our security, now and in the future, for which we require conventional capabilities that we do not currently possess, and the availability of which is bound to be affected if the defence budget is expected to meet the cost of like-for-like replacement.

Because the retention of the nuclear deterrent is a political decision, I should like to ask the incoming Prime Minister two questions through the Minister before Monday’s debate. First, will she consider removing the cost of the deterrent from the defence budget, so that the 2% of GDP can be spent on maintaining viable conventional forces? Secondly, how certain is she that we can afford to give up so much of our required conventional capability to afford like-for-like replacement of our current nuclear deterrent fleet?

Counter-Daesh: Quarterly Update

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. It is slightly outside my brief, as that is a Home Office matter, as he will appreciate. But I am aware that there is considerable concern across government about schools of the kind he mentioned, particularly unregistered schools, where a false ideology is being promoted. Again, I shall consult Home Office colleagues and, if I can give the noble Lord up-to-date information, I shall be happy to write to him.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

The Minister mentioned the spread of Daesh to Libya—and one of the principal victims of Libya is, of course, Egypt. What help are we giving to Egypt to counter the increased Daesh activity on its borders?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are in close touch with the Egyptians about this, and we share their concern about the spread of Daesh in Libya. We welcome the signing of the Libyan political agreement in December for the establishment of a Government of National Accord to restore a measure of security and stability in Libya. We know that the Egyptians are also supportive of the new Government in any way that they are able. All I can say to the noble Lord is that we will continue to play an active role and encourage the Government in Libya to make sure that, as the Libyan state authority is re-established across national territory, we see respect for human rights being considered as an important part of rebuilding governance—and, of course, we impress that message on the Egyptians as well.

Immigration Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendment 84”.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, immediately before I sought to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 84 on Report, I said that any suggestion that administrative detention—that is, detention ordered not by a court of law but by Home Office officials—should not be subject to judicial oversight had to stop. Even at the late hour of 7.49 pm the House agreed with me. The Government’s alternative, accepted last night in the Commons and proposed just now by the Minister, demonstrates acceptance of the principle of judicial oversight, but only after a person has been administratively detained for six months from their first entry into detention. That seems virtually no change. Such a long period without judicial oversight seems precious little different from the present situation, which, as was described on Report, is frankly an affront to the national reputation for claiming to be a civilised society.

I am interested that the Government thought it appropriate to introduce automatic bail hearings. They were introduced into the Immigration Act in 1999, allowing for automatic hearings after eight days of detention and then after 36, but this never came into force and was eventually repealed. So, having repealed automatic bail hearings, how on earth have they now suddenly reappeared?

My concern is that the Minister in the other place claimed that all detainees were told that they had a right to seek a bail hearing, a judicial review, or a writ of habeas corpus. In actual fact, many of them are suffering from mental health problems that prevent instruction of a solicitor, let alone making a bail application. Many are legally unrepresented and speak little or no English. They do not understand the system that locked them up and many are too confused or distressed to avail themselves of the right to apply for bail. You have only to speak to some of those who have been through it to realise the realities of the system. It is not the fairyland presented by officials as possible.

On the question of mental health, there is absolutely no doubt that being held in immigration detention increases stress and gives rise to increased mental health problems. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, told us that there was an inquiry into mental health in immigration removal centres being conducted by the Centre for Mental Health. I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Centre for Mental Health. I followed up what that inquiry meant. Far from being initiated by the Home Office, it was initiated by NHS England when it was given responsibility for commissioning mental health treatment in detention centres. The Home Office officials then delayed any start by the Centre for Mental Health. Then they appeared to panic and asked for the report to be put in by the end of March, but they limited the number of immigration removal centres that the Centre for Mental Health people could visit. This does not seem to me to be either a proper examination of the system as it is actually working, or taking advantage of the Centre for Mental Health’s reputation for very detailed research, which it has established over many years. I would be very interested to know exactly why the Home Office officials behaved like that.

In his report, Stephen Shaw found substantial cause for alarm over detention policy, particularly as regards the treatment of those with mental illnesses, which he said,

“does not and cannot equate to good psychiatric practice”.

He described the situation as being,

“an affront to civilised values”.

My concern is that the keeping of people in administrative detention for six months before they allegedly have automatic bail hearings is too long. The House has already decided that the detention should be kept as short as possible, and voted for 28 days. That is why I suggest that we return to what we voted on at Report. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Dear) (CB)]

I should inform the House that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment C2 by reason of pre-emption.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

How prescient I have been, it would appear.

In those circumstances, I respectfully suggest to this House that the Government have responded in a reasoned, reasonable and proportionate way to the issues that have been raised, and I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his response and to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate.

Referring first to the Minister’s comments I would say yes, of course it is open to a person to ask for bail. What I sought to illustrate was that although that may be so in theory, in practice many of them simply do not know what to do. I accept that there have been many applications for bail. However, just out of interest, I would like to know at what period in their detention those people made the bail application and how long they had been there. In report after report of inspections of immigration detention centres, both the Chief Inspector of Prisons and the chief inspector of immigration have pointed out the absence of interpreters and legal advice and the fact that they were approached by many detainees asking how they could get help. We will not resolve this situation in this House tonight, but it is clearly unsatisfactory as seen through the eyes of the people on the ground, who are making the applications. I absolutely accept that the 1999 automatic bail provision was repealed because it was unworkable, but I am just interested that automatic bail should be substituted for it.

If I might refer to the comments of my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I never said that immigration detention should be limited to 28 days. What I said was that nobody should be submitted to administrative detention—that is, detention ordered by civil servants—without judicial oversight of that detention within the shortest time possible. A period of 28 days is entirely reasonable. It was the decision taken by the commission which the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister, and I, were on, and which was agreed to by the other place in a debate last September. Bringing in judicial oversight of immigration detention as quickly as possible must be the aim of any system. Yes, it is said the expert advice is available, but it is not in fact, as I have tried to illustrate.

My contention is that a principle is at stake here. If we wish to remain a civilised country, we cannot go on with a system in which civil servants are allowed to put people in immigration detention for unspecified periods which, as we all know, have stretched to months and even years. Anything longer than a month, in circumstances which I inspected for a long time—I think I know a little bit about them—is not successful. Therefore, without more ado, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and privilege to be the first to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and to congratulate him on his outstanding maiden speech. It is very appropriate that he should have made it during the processing of the Armed Forces Bill because of the many years of outstanding service that he gave to the Royal British Legion. As he mentioned, I have particular reason to be grateful to him for his tireless and comprehensive briefing of those of us who were fighting for the retention of the post of chief coroner because, as he said, that retention has been responsible for an improvement in the conduct of military inquests. As the noble Lord has proved today, he has a deep understanding of veteran affairs, from which I am sure the whole House will benefit in future, as will the veterans whom he has served so well.

As the Minister said in his introduction, this is a very modest Bill and I propose to concentrate on three subjects that I hoped it would contain and on which I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments. The first concerns the Armed Forces covenant, which was made statutory in the 2011 Act. History suggests that now that our Armed Forces are no longer on active service in Iraq and Afghanistan, they will fade from the public eye, which will result in the plight of veterans, particularly gravely injured veterans, becoming less and less a matter of immediate public concern.

When the covenant was first proposed, I wrote twice to the Prime Minister, as well as repeating the plea that I made to him during the processing of the Act; namely, that the Minister for Veteran Affairs be removed from the Ministry of Defence and placed in the Cabinet Office. My reasoning for that was that no junior Minister operating from the MoD silo, responsible for the day-to-day affairs of those currently serving in the Armed Forces, cuts any clout in ministries such as the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, which have day-to-day responsibility for matters affecting veterans. However, if the Minister operated from the Cabinet Office, where the Armed Forces Covenant Committee is based, he or she could speak to them with the authority of that office, and oversee the focus on veteran affairs.

I appealed also that the statutory annual statement on the covenant required of the Secretary of State for Defence should include statements from all ministries involved in veteran affairs, listing what they had done for veterans during that year. I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, when he was the MoD Minister in this House, hoping that this annual statement would be made verbally in both Houses so that Members could have an annual opportunity to check on progress by asking specific questions. My motive for that was and remains my fear that unless there is a regular opportunity to ensure that momentum is being maintained, undertakings, however well intentioned when made, risk being dropped and forgotten. I have two areas of particular concern.

First, there is no doubt that in future years an increasing number of veterans will suffer from mental health problems, including PTSD. For example, it is most important that anyone involved in an IED incident should have that fact recorded on their medical documents because history proves that they may well suffer flashbacks, which doctors can deal with appropriately if they know what a person has been through. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, I am not convinced that all that could be done to ensure that veterans’ mental health problems are being looked after in the same way as physical health problems is being done, and would like an annual opportunity to keep pressure on the authorities responsible for provision and improvement.

Secondly, too many veterans come into the hands of the criminal justice system, unfortunately. Times without number since I first became aware of the problem in 1996, I have appealed, first to the Home Office and then to the Ministry of Justice, for someone to be made responsible and accountable for veteran affairs in prisons. But that plea includes both police and probation, and there have been calls for the establishment of special veteran courts, as exist in America.

There have been numerous studies and reports on veterans in the criminal justice system by bodies such as the Centre for Mental Health, the Howard League for Penal Reform and, most recently, a commission sponsored by Lord Ashcroft, of which I was a commissioner. But despite the report of our commission receiving an official response from the previous Secretary of State for Justice, nothing has happened. We called for everyone entering the criminal justice system, initially via the police but later prison or probation, to be asked whether they had served in the Armed Forces so that appropriate action could be taken to help them both while serving their sentence and, most particularly, on release. Admittedly a number make bogus claims to have served, but the validity of such claims can soon be checked, as was proved by the police in Kent. What I am concerned about is the treatment of the depressingly large number of genuine veterans who are sentenced to either imprisonment or supervision in the community, with whose rehabilitation service charities and other ex-service organisations could be involved, if only they were alerted. This is, again, something that Parliament could and should chase up, which is why I appeal to the Minister that the annual statement on the Armed Forces covenant should be made verbally, by statute.

My second concern may seem like a small matter, but I think that it has a wider significance. At present, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales formally inspects—as he does every other prison—the Military Corrective Training Centre in Colchester every five years, but by invitation only. At a recent seminar, attended by the Secretary of State for Justice, the recently retired chief inspector said publicly that the MCTC was the best prison in the country, and a living example of how prisons should be run. This is partly due to the experience of its staff, no one being allowed to join the Military Provost Staff Corps until they have proved themselves to be capable soldiers. The remit of the Chief Inspector of Prisons includes both police and court cells but, now that the MPSC is to be responsible for running regional detention centres, which will replace the old regimental guard rooms, I believe that they too should be added to his list. Therefore I appeal to the Minister that this requirement should be made statutory in this Bill.

It is not as easy to be so specific about my third concern. Many other noble and noble and gallant Lords have already referred to the clash between human rights legislation and those involved in armed conflict. I personally despise the actions of British lawyers who have gone out to Iraq and Afghanistan touting for business that seeks to undermine the credibility and reputation of their Armed Forces. I agree with all those who have called for this to be urgently looked at, and I shall inform the Minister of one experience when I was Adjutant-General. The Second Permanent Under-Secretary came to the three officers who were responsible for personnel in their services and told them that they had to work out how industrial tribunals would be included in service discipline chains. When we asked whether such industrial tribunals came before or after the Queen, we were told that that was totally irrelevant because the Bill including this requirement had already had its First Reading in the House. We had not seen the Bill and when we sent for it we found that there were such ridiculous things in it as, if a person were ordered by his employer into a place of danger, he could seek an industrial tribunal. I wondered whether the OC B Company could take his commanding officer to an industrial tribunal if he were told to capture a hill. We discovered that this followed an instruction from Brussels—at least that was what was alleged. When we asked what our NATO allies—the Germans, French and Italians—had done about it, they said that their Governments had sought dispensation from this ruling. Our Government had not.

To what has already been said to the Minister, I add my hope that the assault on the clash between human rights legislation and those involved in armed conflict will not be conducted in isolation just in this country but will include our NATO allies, all of which have armed forces involved in the same dilemma. I hope very much that, rather than the modest Bill that the Minister has announced, the opportunity can be taken to include in it the very real action that is needed to solve what my noble and gallant friend Lord Boyce described as the lawfare question, which is one that I know worries the minds of every serving member of the Armed Forces at present.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

That is a very pertinent point to make and the Government are fully aware of the need to make speed as far as we can.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, my noble friends Lady Hodgson and Lady Scott, and the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Judd, all referred to the importance of service families. The families of our Armed Forces personnel play a vital role in enabling them to do the job that they do, for which the Government are extremely grateful. We have already taken a number of important steps to that end, but, following feedback, we have started to develop a new UK Armed Forces family strategy to review and improve the support we provide to families. That will be launched by the end of 2016. I could say a huge amount on the topics covered by my noble friend Lady Hodgson, especially on housing and veterans’ mental health, but the key question she posed, which I will briefly address, is how well we think the covenant is working.

At the start of the year, we consulted all three single services to understand how they perceived they were disadvantaged. The result has been a comprehensive assessment of delivery in the five key areas of healthcare, local services, spouse employment, education and commercial support. We have also undertaken a challenging package of work to check that our processes and procedures are working. The results were clear: the covenant is working but we need to make it clearer and easier for members of the Armed Forces community to access the support that is available, and delivery is not uniform. We are also aware that we need a mechanism to identify and address localised problems. Better metrics will help and for the first time the Armed Forces covenant annual report includes assessments of our performance in a number of areas. But we also need to be able to measure how the covenant is working at a local level, so the Ministry of Defence will continue to work with other government departments and the devolved Administrations and relevant charities to identify and develop relevant data.

I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, will forgive me for not addressing the points they made about the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme. As time is short, I will write to them on that. I would, however, like to make two points in response to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who indicated that the MoD has no clout with other departments and that the covenant is in danger of fading from the public eye. First, this year the Prime Minister will personally take the helm of the Home Affairs (Armed Forces Covenant) Sub-Committee and ensure that departments work together effectively. Secondly, the Government have committed to a £10 million annual fund in perpetuity to support delivery of the covenant. The existence of that fund will surely keep it in the public eye.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I thank the Minister for that. My main point was that if the statement is made verbally then we will have a chance every year to maintain momentum and make certain that all these issues are pursued.

[Earl Howe]

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

National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The right reverend Prelate reminds us of a very important point of principle. As I hope he will find when he reads this document, running through it is a thread or theme that makes clear that government has to be joined up in all of this—much more joined up than it ever has been in the past. The way in which countries abroad are assessed as friendly, non-friendly or something in between is absolutely essential in our long-term planning. Having said that, we are very clear that we have our prime allies with whom we wish to collaborate, specifically when it comes to defence—not least the United States, France and, increasingly, Germany. However, it is possible for countries around the world to unite around a common objective, as we saw recently with the United Nations Security Council resolution, where all the members of the Security Council voted in one direction. That was a remarkable event in itself, and we should take our cue from that in deciding how to proceed further in the context of the Middle East conflict.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, one of the problems of SDSR 2010 was that so much depended on financial provision in 2015, which of course has not materialised. Could the Minister say how much of the £178 billion provision for buying and maintaining equipment over the next decade is guaranteed? Presumably, that includes the military equipment which is required for the two strike brigades which the noble Lord, Lord Reid, mentioned earlier.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the figure of £178 billion is £12 billion more than we previously announced and is over 10 years, as the noble Lord rightly said. It will embrace a whole range of equipment, including equipment needed for the Army. It is not possible for me to define some of that equipment at this juncture, because we wish to leave our options open. But I hope he will take heart from the section in the report about equipping the Army with, for example, the new Ajax vehicle and the new MIV, as it is called. These highly flexible, speedy and capable vehicles will ensure that the strike brigades are supported, as they need to be, with the right equipment so that they can be deployed swiftly and effectively—sometimes, if necessary, at long range.

The Role and Capabilities of the UK Armed Forces, in the Light of Global and Domestic Threats to Stability and Security

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for initiating this debate. I am very glad that it is taking place in the period before we have the SDSR because that definitely did not happen in 2010. If lessons are to be learned, it is very important that there is as wide a consultation as possible on an SDSR before it is initiated. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth mentioned this. I have to declare an interest as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

The Minister confirmed that the Government have not just begun work on the national security strategy and the defence review but that they are due to report by the end of the year. As I listened to the contributions of noble Lords around the Room today, I began to wonder whether that was not too rushed. The last defence review was to be financed by what was promised to be there in 2015. At the time, we said, “We are not quite certain that that finance is likely to be there”, as indeed has proved to be the case. I therefore wonder whether, as a result of the consultations by the various Select Committees, plus those in this House, the Government might wish to think again before rushing ahead with something that they may not have considered.

I am very glad that there are two words in the Motion which I want to say something about. First, on “capabilities”, I would add “sustainability” at that stage because, as the noble Lord, Lord King, will remember from the Options for Change exercise, our key concern—certainly in the Army—was whether what was to be produced would be sustainable. Sustainability includes the maintenance of operations over a period of time. For example, when we sent help to Rwanda, the only thing we could do was to send a composite administrative force for six months, which mended roads, repaired vehicles and provided communications and medical support. There simply were not the replacements in the order of battle for us to continue with an operation that we had started. I fear that sustainability has been absent from many of the reviews I have seen in the recent past. It is a word that should be there.

However, I am very glad that “domestic” is in the Motion because it is often forgotten just how much the Army, for instance, is doing to underpin the domestic life of this nation. When I was commanding my battalion, I sent my soldiers off to a dustmen’s strike in Glasgow. When I was commanding the brigade in Belfast, we had a tanker drivers’ strike. When I was Adjutant-General, we had an ambulance drivers’ strike. In recent times, the Army have not only had strike preparation but underpinned the floods, the foot and mouth disease outbreak and the security at the Olympic Games. They have also gone off because of Ebola. In fact, the Army is underpinning quite a lot of the life of the nation. If it is all to be deployed only on operations—if only operations are being thought of—something will be lost which we cannot afford to lose. As your Lordships will understand, that is a plea not to reduce the Army to anything below the 82,000 it has now been forced down to. I do not think we can afford to do without that domestic role.

What is the actual aim and role of the Armed Forces? It was put very clearly in NSS 2010: to protect the nation’s,

“security in an age of uncertainty”.

Uncertainty, as many noble Lords have said, is of course impossible to plan for. Above all, what is missing from a lot of the consideration that has been happening is what the military refer to as the critical mass needed to carry out the tasks identified or, as the noble Lord, Lord King, said, the minimum strength needed. It is exactly the same thing.

In the Ministry of Defence there used to be what was called a basket-weaving exercise, which happened every year. A White Paper or some other document would be produced which laid down what the services were to do. They then worked out how much it would cost to do what had to be done, and that was then compared with the money that had been made available. Inevitably, there would not be enough money. Then there would be a basket-weaving exercise where every aspect of what was required was costed and put into categories known as “essential”, “desirable” and “nice to have”. That basket was put to Ministers for them to make the decisions and say, “We know perfectly well that we are not going to get any more money, and we accept what you say, and therefore this is not to be done because we cannot afford it”. I do not think there is much evidence of basket weaving in some of the things that have happened. The equipment budget, which my noble friend Lord Dannatt particularly mentioned, raises questions about what should and should not be done, but I am not absolutely certain that that exercise has been carried out in full.

Mention has been made of the financial direction of all this and the role of the Treasury. Of course, since SDSR 2010 we have had Army 2020, which we all know was an entirely financially driven exercise. The Chief of the General Staff was told by the Permanent Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Defence how much money he could have, and therefore the Army as it is structured today is designed to fit a financial envelope. I do not believe that that is correct in terms of meeting the challenges of an emerging world. The role and the capabilities of the Armed Forces need to be looked at in relation to the challenges they are facing. If you end up with a financial envelope that results in 17 fewer major units, you have not necessarily got something which can meet what had been decided would be the minimum only two years previously. I am concerned about the financial direction of much of this, and I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord King, that the strategic defence and security review should not be just an MoD exercise. It must include all the other connected ministries.

I have not mentioned soft power, but we should remember that of the 0.7% of GDP spent on aid, much of that is actually included in the military budget, so why not look at what the military are contributing as part of that 0.7%? It means that DfID and others must be brought in.

I come to my conclusions about all this, and why I think that the question of timing is so important. My late boss, Field-Marshal Lord Carver, used to say that there were two definitions of the word “affordability”: can you afford it or can you afford to give up what you have to give up in order to afford it? I worry that a lot of things in the defence budget would benefit from scrupulous examination under the terms of the second question. My noble and gallant friend Lord Craig mentioned the nuclear deterrent. I am not going to say anything more—other than that, in order to satisfy the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord King, about the inadequacy of 2% of GDP, consideration ought possibly to be given to whether a political weapon should be removed from the defence budget so that defence planning can be done based on the critical mass needed to meet our challenges, which would produce a conventional element that is capable of underpinning the deterrent. It is, after all, a political weapon and there is no doubt that it is unhinging the defence budget.