British Servicemen: Vexatious Law Suits

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Touhig]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to prevent vexatious law suits being brought against British servicemen.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has recently reaffirmed that the Government will put an end to the industry of vexatious claims. As a first step, we have already announced that the Government intend to derogate from the relevant articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in future conflicts whenever that is considered appropriate. We hope to announce further measures shortly.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

At the last election, the Conservative manifesto promised that our Armed Forces would not be subject to “persistent” legal claims that,

“undermine their ability to do their job”.

As the Minister said, the Prime Minister said in her conference speech that,

“we will never again in any future conflict”,

allow Britain’s Armed Forces to be harassed. However, the Defence Secretary contradicted her in a statement last week when he said that we will act to stop such claims only where this is appropriate. Our forces are subject to UK service law and allegations of criminal activity are rightly investigated. However, under this Government a whole industry of vexatious allegations against the men and women of our Armed Forces has flourished. So will the Minister tell us: is the Government’s policy the one set out by the Prime Minister or the one set out by the Defence Secretary?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there is no contradiction. As the noble Lord rightly said, the vast majority of service personnel deployed on operations overseas have acted in accordance with the law and their training. However, where credible criminal allegations are made, we must investigate in accordance with our legal obligations. What we need to do is strip out the vexatious claims. That is why we are taking a range of measures, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware.