Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Russell of Liverpool and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the last time I spoke on this issue was in support of my late noble friend Lord Judd, who, as my noble friend Lady Massey said, was much admired and loved—and, I would add, is much missed. He brought to issues such as this his passion for social justice, which was unrivalled in your Lordships’ House. That said, my noble friend has made a powerful case today in introducing these amendments. Like her, I come to the issue from a children’s rights perspective and am grateful for the briefing from the Child Rights International Network.

I apologise that I could not attend the Second Reading debate but, reading it, it seemed that the Minister was rather flippant in her response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, when she raised this issue. The Minister dismissed the term she used, “child soldiers”, as

“a term that few of us in this Chamber recognise”.—[Official Report, 7/9/21; col. 775.]

Perhaps so but it acts as a reminder that we are talking about children, as defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as has already been emphasised. The Minister may wish to point out that the convention does not prohibit enlistment of children under the age of 18. But the body which monitors compliance with the convention, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, has repeatedly called on the UK to raise the minimum age of recruitment to 18. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has in the past, including when I was a member, also questioned government policy on this matter from a human rights perspective.

The UN committee will be reviewing the UK’s progress on children’s rights again next year and has already flagged up Armed Forces recruitment in the list of issues that the review will examine. It has asked the Government to explain what steps they have taken to raise the enlistment age since the last review in 2016. The committee has also asked whether the minimum period of service for recruits aged under 18 is still longer than for adult recruits—a discrimination that Amendment 62 seeks to end. Surely we wish to be able to point to progress in this area since the last review.

As my noble friend underlined, it is important to remember the international context. She pointed to a clear positive trend: half a century ago, it was normal for state armed forces to recruit children; in most parts of the world, including Europe, it is now abnormal. This is a seismic shift at a global level that has already safeguarded countless adolescent children from the harm associated with joining the armed forces too early. Increasingly, the global consensus that children should be safeguarded from military work is denying political cover to less scrupulous countries than our own and armed groups which otherwise have no qualms about sending child soldiers into combat.

We have an opportunity here. A global ban on the use of children for military purposes used to be a pipe dream. Now, it is at least imaginable. At the moment, the UK follows the lowest legally permissible standard in the world by allowing enlistment from age 16, lagging behind others when we could be helping to lead the way—and it can be done. Noble Lords here will know much more about this than I do but, in contrast to the Army, the RAF and Navy do not recruit many under-18s. Historically, the Army has said that it needs younger recruits just to fill the ranks and when the issue was last debated, the then Minister—the noble Earl, Lord Howe—explained that the under-18s represented 15% of the Army’s inflow, which I found rather shocking. Given that the Army has downsized and, as I understand it, is continuing to do so, surely it does not need underage recruits any more. Can the Minister give us some up-to-date information on the trends in recruitment of those under 18, including what proportion of inflow they represent now?

It would seem that the transition to an all-adult Army could now be within easy reach. For the protection of children’s rights, here in the UK and globally, it is a step we should take.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to support the amendment of my friend and fellow member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, I apologise for not speaking at Second Reading. At that point I had not had the irresistible invitation from the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, to support her on this. She and I have form when it comes to working on children’s rights. I put on the record that I am a governor of Coram, the oldest children’s charity in the United Kingdom, dating from 1739.