Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Walney Excerpts

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

[Lord Walney (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl and, by coincidence, to almost mirror his opening in saying that it is a privilege to listen to the weight of expertise and experience in your Lordships’ House on this profoundly important matter.

We have heard from three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff, the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup, Lord Houghton and Lord Boyce; a former Chief of the General Staff, the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt; a former First Sea Lord, my noble friend Lord West; and a former Secretary-General of NATO, my noble friend Lord Robertson. All of them have raised serious questions over the constitution of this Bill as it currently stands, and I hope that that alone will prompt Ministers to pause, reflect and reconsider before we enter Committee.

I will focus my brief remarks on consideration of the potential impact of these measures on Britain’s wider national security and place in the world. In other settings, a number of noble Lords who have contributed today have set out the view that the chief threat to the United Kingdom in decades hence will come from hostile powers seeking to loosen and subvert the rules-based order that binds the international community together; to sow disharmony and despair among those who built up the multilateral system after the Second World War; and to build a new world order governed not by the consent of member states but by naked authoritarian power and fear, in which honour and the global rule of law is swept aside as a naive irrelevance.

There is a clear need for legislation, as has been compellingly set out again today, and the Government should be commended for maintaining their commitment to bring forward a Bill and get something on to the statute book. Yet this is not a case of simply choosing between practical measures to protect our troops and an academic debate over the strategic drivers of geopolitics. Those in our Armed Forces who deserve increased protection are of course the same men and women who will be placed in harm’s way in any future conflict.

The laws governing such conflict are but one part of the rules-based framework over which there is an ongoing struggle, but they are not an insignificant part, so we should be aware of the potential for significant change, as several of these measures would currently constitute, and the way in which this could influence what may be a fragile balance of power between ourselves and our adversaries in the years ahead. We should proceed only if we can be confident that what we propose will not produce a damaging ripple effect, weakening vital global safeguards such as the Geneva conventions, which have been mentioned a number of times today, and indeed the threat of opening up the United Kingdom to the International Criminal Court.

Professor Michael Clarke, formerly of RUSI, who was mentioned by a recent speaker, put it well recently when he warned that, if we overstep the mark with this Bill, malign actors may gleefully seize on the precedent that we set, dragging our reputation down as part of a tactic to avoid international sanctions and condemnation for significantly worse and more damaging measures. The way that the United Kingdom projects itself matters greatly. We should not disavow or diminish the impact of our determination to uphold vital international norms on the battlefield and beyond.

So let us test the arguments thoroughly in Committee to ensure that the final Bill presented to Her Majesty is one in which we can all genuinely take pride.