Draft Service Police (Complaints etc.) Regulations 2023

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 General Committees

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his thorough introduction of this draft SI. The Opposition do not intend to divide the Committee, but I have a number of questions to pose to him.

All in Committee agree that our service personnel embody the very best of British. They exemplify the highest standards in our society, and we rightly expect our service police to uphold those same values, but when complaints are made against the service police, considerable flaws in the service police complaints process become apparent. As highlighted by the Lyons review, the current process lacks independence from the Ministry of Defence and its scope is too narrow.

Our armed forces personnel need to feel confident that, in return for carrying out their duty to keep our nation safe, they will in turn be looked after by the service police force that is there to protect them and to uphold high standards. Our service personnel also need to know that when service police officers fall short of that mark, a strong system is in place to investigate properly officers who are the subject of a complaint, and that they will be held to account if they have failed in their duties.

Broadly, therefore, we welcome the implementation of a new independent service police complaints process, and Labour will support today’s draft legislation, but clarification is needed and I have a number of questions. Will the new body be adequately resourced to carry out its functions? The Minister says that he is not expecting too many cases to cross its desk, but I would be grateful if he set out whether sufficient resourcing is allocated, or whether the resources will come from existing budgets. There are also wider concerns about whether the new complaints process is wide enough in scope, and whether it will inherit some of the issues afflicting the current civilian police complaints system.

Labour welcomes the appointment of Ms Margaret Obi as the Service Police Complaints Commissioner, but the Government must provide assurances that the new independent niche body she oversees will be sufficiently resourced. We know that it will be funded by the MOD, but since there is to be a £2 billion real-terms cut in day-to-day spending for 2024-25, and since the extra money secured in last week’s Budget applies only to the nuclear programme and replenishing stockpiles, can the Minister say what the new body’s annual budget will be?

Will the funding for the new complaints system come out of the MOD’s existing budget, and existing service police costs, or will additional resources be applied? Will staff in the new complaints system be permanently working in the new unit, or will they be on secondment, as we discussed in a previous statutory instrument on policing in our armed forces? Will staff need additional resources to carry out the independent body’s functions? I am particularly looking at the training requirement to learn the necessary lessons, especially if we are to move service police complaints to the same level as complaints relating to civilian police forces. When is the new service police complaints process due to come into force? The SI mentions a date in June; will the Minister confirm that?

The Lyons review suggested that, even with a new independent body,

“investigations of serious crime and wrongdoing may not even reach double figures.”

It also stated that the caseload will depend on the scope of the system, who can access it, and what time limits are placed on it. New independent oversight of the service police is welcome but there are serious questions about service police misconduct when dealing with complaints in the armed forces. I hope those can be addressed through this new system. Also, from discussing a similar issue in a statutory instrument Committee a few months ago, we know of concerns that if cases remain very low in number, there will not be a sufficient volume going through the system for officers dealing with those cases to be adequately trained and familiar with the procedures. As the Minister is expecting only a very small number of cases, especially death and serious injury matters, will he set out how those working in that space will deal with a sufficient volume of cases to be trained to and to perform at a high standard? There were questions about whether that was appropriate the last time we met to discuss a related measure.

We also know that, in recent years, an epidemic of bullying and sexual harassment in our armed forces has been allowed to fester, with service police investigations into sexual offences increasing by a third since 2019. Although there are wider questions about the effectiveness of the military court martial system—the Minister will be aware that Labour has repeatedly called for the most serious crimes to be tried in civilian courts to improve access to justice for service personnel—it is crucial that service police officers and the service police force as a whole take more responsibility for creating a culture that roots out bad behaviour, and that they are held to account if they do not do so.

Given the statement that the Home Secretary has just made in the Commons regarding the Casey review, what steps is the Minister taking, as the Minister with oversight of policing in our armed forces, to see what lessons can be applied? Although that report looks at the Metropolitan police, I do not believe the Metropolitan police are alone in having these issues. I would be grateful if the Minister set out his plan to review the Casey report and apply any learnings to the MOD.

In the guidance on today’s statutory instrument, the Minister says that the draft regulations provide for a complaints system similar to the system applied to the civilian police in England and Wales. I draw his attention to concerns about failings in the civilian police complaints system, which we cannot afford to transfer to the service police system. For example, Labour is clear that officers of any kind who are accused of rape and domestic abuse should be suspended while their case is investigated. I realise that that deals with the appeal against the investigating officers, but it is important to put that on the record.

Regulation 19 deals with withdrawn complaints. With the aim of ensuring high levels of probity, if a complaint is made against a service police officer and subsequently withdrawn, can that be one of the items that is reported to Parliament? There is concern that an organisation with a high level of hierarchy and orders to be followed may place barriers in the way of people seeking justice who have been failed by the chain of command or the justice system. If there is a point where complaints are made and subsequently withdrawn, may we have an understanding of how many cases are involved? I do not expect to see signs of a conspiracy, but we need to make sure that there are no barriers in the system, and the culture that goes along with it, to someone coming forward with a complaint about their experiences.

Last year, the Home Affairs Committee looked into police complaints procedures and concluded that there are still serious concerns about delays to investigations due to the complexity of language and processes. The Minister said that he has mapped the civilian language over to this SI. How will the application of the same processes and language apply in an armed forces context compared with the civilian context? We do not want to arrive at a place where we are unable to effectively hold service police to account because of unwarranted bureaucratic language and processes, which have been cited as holding back justice in civilian police forces.

Will the Minister provide some much-needed detail about the differences between the civilian complaints regime and the new service police complaints system? He briefly touched on that point in his remarks. Paragraph 7.7 of the explanatory memorandum states that the key difference will be

“the lack of accelerated procedures for members of the Armed Forces”

in internal disciplinary procedures, to reflect the service context. We all understand that service life is different from civilian life, but will the Minister set out what is meant by a lack of accelerated procedures for members of the armed forces? Surely there is merit in having complaints dealt with swiftly. If the issue is personnel who are involved being deployed, I would be grateful if the Minister set that out.

I have had quite a lot of dealings with the Independent Office for Police Conduct in relation to the Keyham shooting in the patch I represent, and I have been impressed by the IOPC’s working. If the Minister’s intends to carry over a similar type of work to service policing, that is a good move. It is a really important sign that we need to move military justice to the same thresholds and standards that we expect in civilian justice.

On that basis, Labour will not oppose the regulations, but I want to pick up on the Minister’s comments about the super-complaints body. When that is assessed, will there be a consultation, or will the process just be applied and a decision made by Ministers? Does it need to be approved through a statutory instrument process? Could he set that out clearly?

The Minister said that historical matters will not initially be dealt with. I understand the importance of drawing a clear line between what cases are dealt with and what are not, but I am not certain about the “not initially” part of what he said. Will he clarify whether that will be a task for the new commissioner in due course, or whether that is a decision for Ministers?

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester raised a very fair point about the application of this legislation to Gibraltar. As the Minister knows, I often raise questions about territorial extent. Unlike many SIs that we have dealt with recently, it is good to see that overseas territories and some Crown dependencies are included in these draft regulations. However, if we continue to miss out Gibraltar, we are creating a situation where UK service personnel in Gibraltar—not just the Gibraltar regiment, but UK service personnel based in Gibraltar—have a sub-optimal level of justice and application of modern legislation. Is there a piece of work under way in the MOD to collate all the pieces of legislation where Gibraltar has been excluded so that we can make sure to use the opportunity of the next Armed Forces Bill, whenever that may come, to correct a growing level of disservice to armed forces personnel who are based in Gibraltar?

Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Owen Thompson]

I do not intend to detain Members overly long. In moving the amendments, I am perhaps chancing my arm. They are not in any way meant to take anything away from the Bill, which is a very good Bill. I commend the hon. Member for Aberconwy for the work he has done to get it to this stage, and I look forward to its progressing further, hopefully with the support of all Members. However, I could not let such an opportunity pass without once again making efforts to try to address some of the issues that have arisen with Veterans UK over several years. For the record, I draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that I am a vice convener of the all-party parliamentary group for veterans, and we have undertaken a fair bit of work looking at the experiences of veterans with Veterans UK.

My intention is not to detract from the Bill, which does a lot of very good things and moves very much in the right direction. It raises awareness of vital services that are available to veterans, but there is an opportunity to do just that bit more.

There is an opportunity here for us to reshape the relationship between veterans advisory and pensions committees—VAPCs—and the Office for Veterans’ Affairs, giving that office the formal task, on a statutory footing, of holding Veterans UK to account, and providing a kind of ombudsman service. That is the purpose of amendment 1. At the moment—we have heard this from a number of Members in debates—Veterans UK, to a large extent, is judge and jury when it comes to deciding outcomes. The Bill could provide a potential mechanism for a third party to oversee those processes. I do not think that that asks too much in addition from the Bill.

Amendment 2 seeks to make provision about the membership of VAPCs. To my mind, it is a relatively straightforward proposal. Those who are part of veterans associations know our veterans better than anyone, so formally ensuring their inclusion in VAPCs is a sensible proposal. They may well be on those committees anyway, but let us just make sure that they form part of them.

On amendment 4, I have one particular question for the Minister. It was unclear from my reading of the Bill whether it covers any of our veterans who now live overseas. Amendment 4 seeks to make it absolutely clear that it does, because I do not feel that that clarity is there at the moment. I may have missed it—if I have, I welcome that. However, let us just be clear and make sure that all veterans can access the support that is available.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Some clarity on both the territorial extent of the Bill and veterans living overseas would be helpful, including the Bill’s application to veterans living in overseas territories and Crown dependencies, as they sometimes sit in a different category from veterans living overseas. Does the hon. Member agree?

[Owen Thompson]

I absolutely agree. It is simply a matter of clarity. I do not think there is any intention to exclude anyone here, and I am not trying to suggest that there is. We need some clarity around that, to be sure.

Finally, on amendment 3, the Bill refers to covenant matters in relation to housing, education and health, but those are not the only things our veterans need help and support with. I hope that the measure might be expanded to include social care, employment, immigration and that sort of thing. I do not think it would be unnecessarily complicated to add those to the Bill, and I look forward to hearing the thoughts of the hon. Member for Aberconwy and the Minister on the proposals.

I am not here to detain anyone for longer than is necessary, and this is a good opportunity for us to continue the work that is clearly under way better to support our veterans. After all, they have given so much to support the nations of these isles, so it is not too much to ask that we do everything we can to support them, particularly when they need it most.

--- Later in debate ---

Clause 3 sets out the power to make transitional and savings provisions by regulation as required. Transitional provisions may be necessary for practical reasons when migrating from the old regulations to the new. The clause also confirms that the short title will be the Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committee Act 2023.

[Luke Pollard]

I welcome the Bill that the hon. Member for Aberconwy is seeking to introduce; it seems perfectly sensible. However, I have a few questions for the Minister.

In the very useful impact assessment to the Bill, section D on risks assumptions and limitations states that the MOD

“has yet to complete its own review of the VPACs.”

It says that there is a risk that future legislation will be required if that review is not completed before this legislation is taken forward. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out whether the review has been completed, so that we can be sure that we are not risking a requirement for additional legislation. On a point about language, section D also states:

“There is a risk that the widened cohort of veterans in scope will increase the number of personnel receiving support from the VAPCs under option 3”,

which was the one mentioned by the hon. Member for Aberconwy. I think that is not so much a risk resulting from the legislation as its intention, so that is interesting language to use.

May I ask the Minister about the terms of reference for VAPCs? From various explanatory notes, it seems that the last terms of reference were issued by the Office for Veterans’ Affairs, yet the explanatory notes to the Bill suggest that the Ministry of Defence will now issue them. I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify whether it is the OVA or the Ministry of Defence issuing the terms of reference from now on.

Finally, I had a look on the VAPC website to see what is going on, and I would like to praise all the volunteers for their work. There are many minutes on the website, and the number of issues considered in them shows that there are some incredible volunteers working their socks off, but I encourage the Minister to ask his officials to update the website a wee bit. Some regions, such as Yorkshire and Humber, seem incredibly active and are very efficient at getting their minutes posted on the website. Other VAPC regions are, I am sure, meeting and writing minutes, but those minutes do not seem to be as prominent on the VAPC website.

Another question is how people can contact members of VAPC regional committees. There are frequent lists of names of those whom the Secretary of State has appointed to the VAPCs, but there is not any obvious way for people to contact them. If the intention is not for people to contact the regional chair, but to make contact via a different method, it would be helpful to say what that method is when listing the members of a committee that people are being encouraged to contact. Other than that, this looks like a sensible piece of legislation.

[Dr Murrison]

This Bill is intended to regularise what has become custom and practice. There is nothing particularly new here, but the Bill does give VAPCs, which we have decided are worthwhile, a statutory basis. I hope the Bill will be seen in that light.

Under this legislation, VAPCs would have a statutory remit to do more than engage locally with recipients of war pensions or the armed forces compensation scheme. They will cover a broader range of issues; they may, for example, gauge veterans’ views on the support they receive from the Veterans Welfare Service, and raising awareness of the armed forces covenant. I hope the Committee will accept that the Government’s intent, through the legislation and the various reviews under way, is to ensure that the interests of veterans are furthered. That Government are sensitive to their concerns about how they are dealt with under the armed forces covenant.

The VAPCs will provide the Ministry of Defence and the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs with a source of independent advice about how the MOD should support veterans and their families. Families are very important in this. One of the changes that the legislation will certainly bring is a focus not just on war pensioners and recipients of benefits under the armed forces compensation scheme but families and the wider defence community. I should highlight that the Bill also allows for recommendations to be adopted from the ongoing independent review of the VAPCs under the Cabinet Office public bodies reform programme, which is due to report at the end of this month, and from the recently announced independent review of the role and scope of the Government’s welfare provision for veterans, including by the MOD under the Veterans UK banner.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, which reflected the perfectly understandable concern that there is a lot going on at the moment, and that there is a risk of overlap. I hope that the timeline that I have given, and the fact that this is enabling legislation—further regulations would have to be made as statutory instruments—mean that, in reality, the whole thing is pretty much covered off. Of course, rather than running these things in parallel, we could have run them in series, but I am persuaded that we need to crack on with this issue, and I do not necessarily want one to follow the other.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

In this weekend’s newspapers, a senior British military officer raised doubts about whether the UK could still claim to be a leading NATO member, because of the hollowing out of the Army’s war-fighting capabilities. The Minister has so far evaded the question, but with today’s funding announcement limited to nuclear enterprise and stockpiles, can he confirm whether it is still his Department’s policy to cut troop numbers by 10%, to cut the reserves and to provide no additional funding to plug the gaps in Britain’s war-fighting capability?

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

The question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) is a good one, because the Government’s failure on defence procurement is not limited to weapons and ammunition. We need only to speak to people in defence housing with leaky roofs, black mould and broken boilers to realise that defence procurement is failing the people who serve in our military and their families. Last year the MOD paid £144 million to private contractors to maintain service families’ accommodation, yet many homes are still awaiting repairs and not getting the service that they deserve. One of the Secretary of State’s Ministers has admitted that these contracts do not represent value for taxpayer money, so why did the MOD sign them in the first place, and when will he be able to tell all our troops that they have a home fit for heroes?

[Mr Wallace]

We always want our homes to be fit for the men and women of our armed forces. I distinctly remember my time in Germany, and indeed in the UK, when the service was in-house, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there were issues with living under a standard of home then, which in some cases were worse. We have been monitoring to make sure that we get these reports answered. It was interesting that the start point of some of the problems was a lack of manning of the helpline at the very beginning—people were ringing up at Christmas and almost no one was there—and then having to work through the whole process. We are trying to do more. We will hold the providers to account and take financial action or whatever against them if we have to do so; I am not shy about doing that. We will try to seek compensation for the people suffering and to improve what is happening. However, in some areas, waits over five days are getting better. That is the first point; we are getting closer.

Service Family Accommodation

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Broken boilers, water pouring into homes, mould, vermin and painful waits for basic repairs—all while Ministers cancel troops’ Christmas leave. Our forces deserve so much better. It is a national scandal that the Government are leaving service personnel, their families and their children without heating and water during the coldest winter for more than a decade. Can the Minister say exactly how many forces homes are currently without heating or hot water, and what he is going to do about it? Can he guarantee here and now that no one in uniform or their family will be without heating or hot water this winter?

Although shocking, these reports are unfortunately not surprising. There are deep-seated problems with the Government’s handling of Defence housing, going back years. One third of our armed forces personnel are dissatisfied with the overall standard of their family accommodation and almost one in three service family homes are awaiting repair. Between June and October this year, more than 5,000 maintenance appointments were missed. Is the Minister confident that his contractors are meeting their mandated key performance indicators? It certainly does not look as though they are. The MOD paid £144 million to contractors to supposedly maintain service family accommodation this year. Is he satisfied that that represents value for taxpayers’ money?

These reports of dodgy accommodation not only are a breach of the contract the nation makes with those who serve, but pose a risk to recruitment and retention. More than one quarter of armed forces personnel said that poor accommodation increases their intention to leave the services. Decent accommodation is a fundamental part of our moral obligation to those who serve and their families. This Government are failing our armed forces when it comes to service accommodation and we need to see better from Ministers. In setting out what he has done, will the Minister now apologise to forces and their families, many of whom will be spending yet another Christmas in shoddy military accommodation?

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Gentleman asks, quite fairly, whether I think that the contractors are meeting their requirements. We are absolutely clear that they are not meeting their requirements. Indeed, that is why a rectification plan was imposed as long ago as September; it was clear that there were some fundamental issues going wrong. I have spoken about the IT issues, but also, candidly, there were not enough people in the call centre. I think Pinnacle had 14 people, although that has now been increased to 60.

I get that there has been some snow and ice, but not biblical levels of snow and ice; these are things the contractors should have accounted for and prepared for. The hon. Gentleman asks whether the contract is value for money, and no, at the moment I do not think it is. If the contractors performed, it would be a perfectly sensible contract, but I reiterate: over and above the annual amount, we must ensure there is the £350 million of support to get ahead of this problem, so that we can have a well-maintained service family accommodation estate that does not run into problems in the first place. I am pleased to note that there is £76 million targeted towards improving thermal efficiency—to you and me, Mr Speaker, that means boilers, insulation and so on—which again will resolve some of these issues.

There are lessons to be learned, candidly, and I am clear about that. One thing that must be investigated is how this contract was entered into. Was it the case that some people were—how can I put it?—a little economical with the actualité when indicating what they could provide by way of support and IT? What did they say and when? We need—[Interruption.] Of course we should also look at the due diligence; that is a fair point as well.

The hon. Gentleman made a political point at the beginning, and I hope he will forgive me for saying this: it is true that a lot is being asked of our troops at Christmas, including to fill in for jobs that others are not doing. I urge him to join the Government in saying that those going on strike should call those strikes off so that our troops can get the Christmas they deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Army’s most senior soldier says personnel are turning to food banks and second jobs this Christmas, just to make ends meet. Six months ago, I raised the alarm that some troops are having to take second jobs at McDonald’s because of the cost of living crisis. I know the Minister says he is supporting our armed forces during the cost of living crisis, but why is the Ministry of Defence still not collecting data on the number of service personnel using food vouchers and food banks or taking second jobs?

[Dr Murrison]

I visited the food bank in my own constituency and discussed the reasons that people use them, which are often complicated. The hon. Gentleman will know that we have accepted the Armed Forces Pay Review Body’s recommendation in full, in recognition of the work that men and women of our armed forces do. He will be aware of the very real big incentives to remain within the armed forces, including a generous non-contributory pension, subsidised accommodation and all the rest of it. He will also be aware of the Haythornthwaite review, which I hope will report soon on what more we can do to incentivise people not only to join but to stay.

Draft Armed Forces (Tri-Service Serious Crime Unit) (Consequential Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 2022 Draft Armed Forces (Court Martial) (Amendment) Rules 2022

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 General Committees

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue, and I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the SIs and answering so many of my colleagues’ questions about them. It is good to see him in his place, even if it does mean that I have lost my co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the National Trust, who will be replaced in due course. I warn the Minister that the last time my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent and I served on a statutory instrument Committee together and I said good things about the Minister, the hon. Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton), she was sacked only hours later. It was sad to see her go, so I will be careful about how positive I am about the Minister today, because I would like him to stay in his place a little longer.

I think everyone in this House agrees that our service personnel deserve a system that is able to investigate and prosecute crime effectively, but there have been clear challenges to that system, and clear holes that have appeared over the past couple of years. It is good that the Government are looking at this issue, because there are serious flaws in our service justice system that need to be looked at. We need only to have read the news over the past few months and seen the lived experiences of many of our service personnel, especially women, to realise that it is not just the execution of justice at the end of a criminal inquiry, but a culture within our armed forces, that has enabled many of the most serious offences to be covered up and sidelined, or not get the attention that they should have done from commanding officers and peers within our armed forces. It is welcome that a journey has started, but more still needs to be done.

Reform is needed, and Labour will not be opposing either of the statutory instruments. However, I have a number of questions that I would like to ask the Minister, the first of which is about the Armed Forces (Tri-Service Serious Crime Unit) (Consequential Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 2022. It is right that each branch of our armed forces has a service police that investigates crimes, and I put on record my thanks to the highly motivated staff for the work that they do. I am concerned that reports and investigations into many of our service police forces have found that personnel cannot be considered proficient in investigating serious crime due to their lack of experience. That is the conclusion reached by the Government’s commissioned review from 2020, conducted by the former chief constable of Merseyside Police, Sir Jon Murphy.

Labour welcomed the provision for the tri-service serious crimes unit during the passage of the Armed Forces Bill, and we note that the extension in today’s statutory instrument is a step in the right direction. I do have concerns, though, about the capacity of the defence serious crimes unit to do enough to remedy the legitimate concerns that we and service personnel have about restoring trust. It is in that spirit that I am going to ask questions of the Minister.

My first question is about staffing and resourcing of the defence serious crimes unit. I note that in his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood the Minister made the case that it would be 370 personnel. That is a sizeable commitment and is very welcome. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out where the expertise is coming from within that 370 personnel and where those personnel are being drawn from. Are they simply being transferred from other service policing, or is there a specific form of recruitment that the Department has undertaken to find the gaps in expertise and fill them with some of those 370 people?

Will the Minister set out what the unit’s annual budget will be and, importantly—because we are in an era where the Defence Secretary has accepted annual real-terms cuts in the defence budget—could he set out whether the budget that the defence serious crimes unit will have will be the same this year, next year and every year until the end of this spending period? Having 370 personnel sounds good now, but if that is to be cut by the same proportion as the day-to-day cuts to the armed forces that we are seeing from the Government, that figure will be lower at the end of the spending review period. Will the Minister tell us what the staff capacity will be when the unit opens next month? Is 370 the establishment figure that the Department is aiming for, or will it be 370 people at their desks, operational, by the time it opens in December?

In relation to civilian expertise, we all recognise that there are pockets of expertise in our armed forces, but also in civilian policing. Finding ways to share expertise is really important. The Government have said that the DSCU will have access to civilian expertise, a promise that must be kept in light of the expertise deficit that was found in the Murphy review. The Murphy review also said that short, informal training placements are no good. Can the Minister confirm, when he talks about adding civilian expertise to the defence serious crime unit, the length of the embedding expected of reservists? Murphy highlights that short placements will neither benefit the overall operational capacity of the DSCU nor help the individual who is placed.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent about the recommendation of the Henriques review that the deputy Provost Marshal should be a civilian. I note that when this instrument was debated in the Lords, and the question was raised, the Minister replied that the embedding of reservists who are police officers in the Home Office police forces will be a way of adequately coping with the lack of civilian oversight, and will bring in more civilian expertise.

I want to test the Minister on the precariousness of the Ministry of Defence relying of the availability of reservists who are civilian police officers with relevant experience. Those people are really important. It is a welcome change that police officers can serve as reservists in our armed forces, but we should be drawing from the with the relevant expertise. I want to understand from the Minister how many of our reservists, on a tri-service basis, have police expertise in investigating serious crimes.

[Sir Mike Penning]

On a point of clarity, I think the hon. Member will find that we are not talking just about reservists from the 43 authorities that come under the Home Office. It will be British Transport police, nuclear police, port police and others—that is where this expertise will come from, not only from the Home Office.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for that intervention. That is useful to know. In relation to where the specific expertise comes from within those forces—the Home Office and other forces—we need to understand how many of the 370 will be reservists and how many will come with specific experience, because there is a big difference between drafting in a reservist with many years of experience as a traffic officer and drafting in a reservist with many years of experience of investigating serious crimes, particularly serious sexual offences. I would be grateful if the Minister spelled that out, because the backfilling of the expertise that we need seems a bit woolly.

Paragraph 7.1 of the draft explanatory memorandum says that specialist investigative support will be provided to the DSCU. Can the Minister expand on what he means by specialist investigative support when it comes to additional civilian expertise? Who will that come from and on what basis? What expertise will be provided, or will it be commissioned on an ad hoc basis depending on each investigation? What budget will be allocated for it? With the addition of specialist investigative support and the embedding of reservists, the Government are seemingly putting a lot of weight on cavalry coming over the hill to resource the unit, rather than the expertise being built and trained in establishment figures every day. I would be grateful if he set out what he means by that in particular.

I would also be grateful if the Minister said what he means by embedding reservists. Is that on a case-by-case basis? Is it a formal drafting or a secondment? Will police officers who are reservists be moved into the posting? Will those individuals be given much choice about it, and how will that work? I want it to work; my concern is that a lot of emphasis is seemingly being put on something that we cannot quite understand the true extent of. I would be grateful if he set out what that will look like. Will he also set out the seniority of the civilian officers he expects to be embedded, and how they will be managed? Will it be part of the normal structure, or will there be another structure? Will a minimum threshold of training and expertise in handling serious crime be required to be embedded, or will the qualification simply be that of being a police officer in one of the forces, and being a reservist and having passed the necessary training?

In response to the initial intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood, the Minister said that there has been no impact assessment, but given the heavy reliance that the Ministry of Defence is placing on reservists it seems to me that some work will have been done to look at the overall capacity and availability of personnel to fill that role. I am not quite convinced by the argument that no impact assessment or work has been done to provide that information, because if it has not been done there is a real risk that it may not work, despite the Government’s good intentions.

I welcome the Minister saying that he would like more of the process to be aligned with civilian processes. That is a good principle, notwithstanding the unique environment in which many of our armed forces operate, but he also said that the DSCU command, as well as being operationally independent, will look at civilian policing qualifications for DSCU officers, I imagine to try to get greater experience and expertise across from civilian police forces. That seems welcome. Is there a similar ambition for service police? I am working on the expectation that many of the 370 personnel in the DSCU will be drawn from service police forces. Is it the intention that the training in civilian police qualifications will happen when they are moved into the DSCU, or will there be an attempt to match that qualification on to the DSCU feeders, which will be the individual services’ policing operations? It would help to look at that when ironing out discrepancies, as the Minister talked about.

The final thing that I want to understand regarding the DSCU is gender balance. The Minister was right that, when we discussed a previous statutory instrument about personnel not only on courts martial and other boards but in investigations, there was a discussion on the gender mix and the experience that can be brought to bear. That is especially true when we are looking at the large number of crimes against women in our armed forces. It is about ensuring that those who prosecute offences have appropriate lived experience, for the sake of the victims of those offences. Will the Minister set out the expectation for the gender balance in the overall unit, and whether there will be any specialist trained officers or personnel in that unit who will deal with serious sexual offences, if they will be investigated?

The hon. Member for Barnsley Central raised an important point on inspection, and I want to probe the Minister a bit further on that. It was said in the Lords debate on this SI that the DSCU would be

“independently inspected by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 November 2022; Vol. 825, c. 566.]

but the Minister did not concretely say that the findings would be published publicly. He says they will be published in the usual way, but I would be grateful if he could commit to them being publicly published, so that people can look into them.

On the extent of the scrutiny and inspection, section 104 of the Murphy review says that all three service police have

“an arrangement whereby from time to time they negotiate with HMICFRS as to what they consider they should be inspected upon. This arrangement could be regarded as ‘cosy’ and does not exist in civilian policing”

where

“Chief Constables have no say in when they are inspected or on what subject.”

Will the Minister set out whether the same cosy relationship will apply in the case of the DSCU inspection regime, or whether it will be sufficiently different? If the Minister is making the case that civilian policing and the operation of the DSCU should be parallel, such a cosy relationship should not be allowed with the DSCU—or, indeed, with the service police.

The Minister said that the SI had been introduced because of the Armed Forces Act 2021. That was three or four Ministers ago, and it has taken a long time for these small but important changes to be brought forward. Will he set out what other changes from the Act we are still waiting for? The reforms are moving at a snail’s pace. He will know about the regularity of armed forces Acts, and I do not want him to get to another one before many of the provisions from the last one are implemented. That means having a clear timetable for implementing the provisions.

The Minister said that the DSCU’s victim and witness care unit would be operational by early 2023. Will he set out more detail about the timetable for that and what will happen in the meantime? That may be only a few months away but, knowing Government timetables and what “shortly” sometimes means, I know that early 2023 could be at any point in 2023. Getting some specifics on the timetable is important to build trust.

I turn to the Armed Forces (Court Martial) (Amendment) Rules 2022. Labour will support these rules at the end of the debate, but I would be grateful if the Minister could provide answers to a few questions. They are worth asking, and they complement the discussions that many of us in this room had only a few weeks ago on the most recent SI on service policing.

The court martial system is one part—an important part—of our service justice system, but for service personnel, veterans and the public to have confidence in the whole system, every part of it must work properly. The prosecution of serious crimes in the service justice system is not working as well as it should. The conviction rate for rape cases tried under court martial was just 9% between 2015 and 2020, whereas the figure in civilian courts is 68% for parallel charges. If we look at the quality of justice, as the Minister suggested we do, we see a gaping divide between the expected outcomes in service justice on the prosecution of rape cases, compared with those in civilian justice.

[Sir Mike Penning]

This is a very difficult comparison. The Crown Prosecution Service decides which cases go forward, and its bar for that, particularly in rape and sexual assault cases, is very high. It wants to have confidence that it will win the case. There is no Crown Prosecution Service here, so, as former Victims Minister, I find the comparison of like for like slightly difficult to accept.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for that intervention, because it allows me to challenge the Minister. If we are seeking to provide greater continuity between service justice and civilian justice, we need to question why those large gaps exist. Is the decision on whether to try a case based on the threshold of evidence presented in that case, or is it about the outcomes of the procedures within the justice system? We have a parallel justice system, and unless someone has been through it or operated in it, there is little public awareness of military justice compared to civilian justice. Notwithstanding what the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead has said, I think it is fair to try to understand what gaps exist to challenge the quality of justice.

The point was made well by my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood about which recommendations of the Lyons review the Minister has decided to accept. In our last SI discussion, I asked the hon. Member for Wrexham, who was sitting in the Minister’s seat at the time, about the recommendations for moving manslaughter, murder and rape from military courts to civilian courts. That recommendation was made in not only the Lyons review but the Defence Committee report that the former Minister drafted when she was on that Committee, to which more than 4,000 serving women and veterans contributed. The Government opposed the amendments on moving manslaughter, murder and rape and other sexual offences when we debated the Armed Forces Act last year.

If we are to look at the two systems in parallel and consider which is most effective, I am not convinced that the argument has been made as to whether we should be looking at simply defence of a system or at defence of an outcome. If we are to look, as the Minister has invited us to do, at the quality of justice and the quality of outcomes for murder, manslaughter and rape, we should perhaps look at that in relation to where this sits.

[The Chair]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are talking about the court martial rules. We are perhaps going a little off scope here.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for that advice. If we are to look at court martial for serious offences, we need to look at whether things should be in the military system or should be dealt with via the civilian system, but I will go with your ruling on this one, Ms Fovargue.

If we are talking about courts martial, I invite the Minister to look again at the make-up of military panels. He mentioned the provisions for what should happen if a member were to become sick or otherwise indisposed and therefore not able to look at a case. Something that was heavily debated in relation to our last statutory instrument was the gender balance of those court martial panels—the provision brought forward was for a woman to be on the panel. Will the Minister set out whether the gender balance of the court martial panel would need to be looked at if the woman was disposed of by illness or other things? Will the guidance that his Department provides cover whether the gender balance of a depleted court martial board should be a reason for a trial to be re-resourced? What guidance will be provided?

I turn to the capacity of the service justice system to deal with the changes proposed in the statutory instrument. Dropping the level from seven to two seems logical. Looking at the number of personnel needed on a panel, the changes proposed seem to make sense. Will the Minister set out whether the increased numbers that would be required fit within the estimates of available personnel, and how those estimates were made, given that the Government have made no impact assessment? I am not convinced that without any work being done, it is sufficient for the Minister to say, “It will all be fine on the day,” when he has told this Committee that no impact assessment has been made. What assurances can the Government provide that the expansion of six-member boards will not contribute to a backlog in hearings? What assessment has been made of that?

Will the Minister look at the territorial extent of the regulations? As set out in paragraph 4.1 of the explanatory memorandum, the regulations deal with the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the British overseas territories, except Gibraltar. The Minister has probably been told by his officials that I ask this question fairly regularly. It seems that we are building up a large deficit of updated regulations that apply to Gibraltar. In the past, it has been said that is because the Gibraltar regiment sits outside the rules, which is an argument that I can understand. However, that does not apply to UK armed forces stationed in Gibraltar.

Will the Minister set out whether alternative provisions apply to Gibraltar for UK personnel stationed or based there, whether those provisions apply to the Gibraltar regiment or UK armed forces personnel stationed at a base in Gibraltar separately, and how the improvements being offered by the SI apply to UK armed forces personnel in Gibraltar? It seems that there is a deficit in relation to Gibraltar. It says in the territorial application—I say this for those who are following online; I am sure the debate makes good listening—that there is an ability for this to apply to courts martial held around the world. I understand that it does, but I would be grateful if the Minister could set that out.

Finally, in our last debate on these statutory instruments, it was obvious that there was a lot of cross-party interest from Members of all parties. However, there was not a huge amount of experience in defence justice. I suggested that the fantastic armed forces parliamentary scheme, which is co-ordinated between the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust and the Ministry of Defence, could look at a component relating to defence justice. The previous Minister said that she would take that up. I would be grateful if the Minister who has taken her place could also look at that.

Although there are many parallels between defence justice and civilian justice, the approaches are very different. Some of the assumptions about how justice is delivered in our armed forces are sufficiently different that an introductory session into defence justice would make a useful addition to the experience provided to Members of Parliament in the AFPS.

[Sir Mike Penning]

The Committee will be pleased to know that I do not want to detain them for very long. I should declare my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am the director of a law firm, even though I am not legally trained.

It is for the Minister to defend many of the points raised by the shadow Minister. However, as the former armed forces Minister—I have a lot of former ministerial titles—may I defend reservists? Many of the comments from the shadow Minister were about reservists’ experience. Modern armed forces around the world cannot operate without reservists. Those reservists can come under myriad different contracts. When I went to Afghanistan and Iraq, most of the American troops that I bumped into on a daily basis were reservists in some form. I used to be a reservist myself, but I am too old now—fortunately, for the armed forces.

The skills that reservists bring into the armed forces are often replicated inside the armed forces, but they often bring in skills that would be difficult for the armed forces to hold on to in terms of capacity. For that reason, it is a bit like when medics in our armed forces train inside the NHS, because we just cannot do that in military hospitals in the way that we used to many years ago.

Different contracts will be brought in, and it will be right for this specialist unit to bring in those skills—whether that is under a six-month or a two-year contract for a reservist is entirely up to the unit and the armed forces reserve to decide. But those skills are vital. I listened carefully to the shadow Minister. I am very proud of our armed forces. We could not have done what we have done around the world in peacekeeping terms without them. I recently visited Cyprus and the UN troops there, and our troops were reservists. That is very important.

Secondly, on the College of Policing, it is fantastic news that other police forces in this country that are not part of the 43 territorial police forces can make use of skills, training and qualifications from the College of Policing, because that never would have happened before.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving way. Reservists do a brilliant job, and the blended force that we have between regulars and reserves is really important. The point I was making is that having the—

[The Chair]

Order. Can we curtail the debate on reservists? I think that is out of scope. We all appreciate that we are talking about the composition of the board and this statutory instrument on courts martial, so I think we need to curtail the debate on reservists and move back within scope.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Murrison]

I am very grateful, Chair, and my right hon. Friend’s insights into these matters are very valuable indeed.

I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, who speaks for the Opposition. He has asked a lot of questions that I will do my best to answer. If I do not give him satisfactory responses, I am more than happy to write to him.

I also thank the hon. Gentleman in relation to his comments about my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham. Although she served for only a very brief time, I think she made an impact, particularly in relation to her report on women in the armed forces, which we debated on 31 October. I will not rehash that debate here today—I think we gave that subject a fairly good airing—and some of the points that the hon. Gentleman has made today were probably dealt with then.

It is important, just for context, to insist that this measure is a consequence of Henriques and Lyons, and their comprehensive review of this piece of service justice. We have genuinely attempted to incorporate their significant recommendations. I believe that the result is an improved service justice system, and I am convinced that the defence serious crime unit will be part of that.

It is also important to say that this unit is made up of elements of service police drawn from across the three services. I think that the Henriques’ concern was that we did not have a specific unit to deal with serious crime. We have seen reflections of that in civilian policing, too, with an increasing concentration of expertise to deal with crimes of a particular nature, especially when those crimes are serious.

In a sense, that is what we are doing here today. We are drawing together into one organisation the elements of service police who deal with serious crime, and I think that right hon. and hon. Members will understand the advantages and focus it will bring to the most serious three crimes in particular.

That said, it is important to put this matter into some sort of perspective because, in general, our service population is pretty law-abiding and does not engage in the sorts of crimes that we are chiefly concerned with today. Nevertheless, when such crimes happen, they need to be dealt with properly and in a way that is comparable to the way they are dealt with in civilian life.

May I deal with the point about reservists? Reservists are going to be important in this process for the reason that I have explained. They will be drawn from all elements of policing. We have very little control over that, in fact. It depends on our ability to recruit and retain reservists which, Ms Fovargue, I am certain you would call me out of order if I were to dilate on now.

However, reservists will be in addition to the 370. Regarding the length of time that they will serve at any one time, of course that will be in accordance with the reservists’ terms and conditions of service. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport will know that reservists are being used more and more these days in our armed forces. I recently came back from the Falklands, for example, where I saw, much to my surprise, reservists providing something like a third of manpower. I think that is extraordinary; I was not anticipating that at all. Very often, they are on three or four month-contracts, as it were, depending upon their civilian commitments.

I suspect that chief constables across the land would be rather concerned if their officers were disappearing for three or four months. Nevertheless, I anticipate that the service police will utilise their 24-day-a-year standard reserve commitment, and perhaps a little more depending on their agreement with their service and their civilian employer. The important point to make is that these reservists contribute now to service policing and will continue to do so in this new unit, but I hope in a rather more focused way.

On training, it is important to say that the constituents of the defence serious crime unit are already service police. They are trained, and in the main they do a good job. Under the Provost Marshal for serious crimes, the unit will focus its training more than is the case at the moment to ensure that College of Policing suggestions and guidance are carried out, and more courses will be provided to those who deal with serious crime from among that cadre. I hope the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport welcomes that.

Like the hon. Gentleman, I have an affection for Gibraltar. He is right that there appears to be a bit of an incongruity with the Royal Gibraltar Regiment and the Falkland Islands Defence Force—perhaps another could be cited. The Armed Forces Act applies to British forces everywhere, including Gibraltar. It applies to the Royal Gibraltar Regiment when it is operating with British armed forces with regular reservists from the UK. It is important to make that point. Otherwise, Gibraltarian law is by and large commensurate with that which applies to the UK.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that point. That is not what the explanatory memorandum says, however. It says:

“The extent of this instrument (that is, the jurisdiction(s) which the instrument forms part of the law of) is the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the British overseas territories (except Gibraltar).”

It explicitly says that it does not include Gibraltar. I hope the Minister is correct, but if he is, the wording of the explanatory memorandum may need to be revisited.

[Dr Murrison]

The Armed Forces Act covers British forces everywhere, including Gibraltar. It applies to the Royal Gibraltar Regiment if it is operating with British armed forces. Otherwise, it does not in the same way, but the Gibraltarian Government have ensured that their legislation covers pretty much the same ground. I know it is untidy, but that is the reality of it—[Interruption.] Well, I am telling the hon. Gentleman what the situation is, and I hope he will accept that. He may wish to write to me, and if he wants me to write to him to clarify it further, I am more than happy to do that.

We are not relying on reservists in the defence serious crime unit, but we believe that, as elsewhere in defence, they will bring important value added to what we do. Obviously, that will evolve over time.

The hon. Gentleman asked what ranks are involved. Again, we are reliant on who the reservists are and who is tempted to join them. I obviously proselytise for them all the time, but we have to work with what we have got. That means that there will be a mixture of uniformed police and detectives, and we have to try to accommodate that as best we can. The hon. Gentleman will be delighted to hear that we will provide training where necessary to ensure that nobody in the reserve cadre is exposed to tasks for which they are not properly trained or equipped.

The hon. Gentleman perfectly reasonably asked about the budget. I will have to write to him, I am afraid, but he will have drawn from what I have said that, because the unit is constituted from officers from across defence, there will be a saving in those parts of defence, which will be translated to this unit. It is perfectly reasonable for him to ask about the additional costs that will be occasioned by setting up the unit, and I will write to him on that.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that no cavalry is about to charge over the hill. Again, I want to caution him. I do not want to give the wrong impression about service justice as it is. We have put a lot of effort into getting very senior judges to look at service justice and, in general, it is felt to be fit for purpose. The European Court of Human Rights, for example, has opined on the matter and has said encouraging things, although there is never any room for complacency. I think that the terminology, although I appreciate that it is well meant, is perhaps inappropriate. We are trying to improve the current situation and, in particular, enact the Henriques recommendations as much as possible.

On His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, I would expect those findings to be published in exactly the same way as the publication of any other Home Office constabulary findings. I would refute the suggestion of a cosy relationship, and, if I find evidence of it, I will certainly deal with it, because that is not the way, in my experience, that His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary usually operates.

On the delay in the setting up of the victim and witness care unit, obviously, I would like it to be set up as soon as possible. I think that “early in the new year” does mean, “early in the new year”. I do not think that there is much plasticity in that, but I am absolutely resolved that this thing should be set up properly. That is why we are consulting with the Survivors Trust and the Victims’ Commissioner’s office in the hope that we can set it up as soon as may be.

However, I am sure the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport will agree that we do not want to set this up, only for it to go off half-cocked; I want it to be done proper. Certainly, authorities such as the Victims’ Commissioner ensure that what we end up having will be something that will pass muster when it is compared with its civilian equivalents. I hope that gives the hon. Gentleman the reassurance that he seeks.

The hon. Gentleman asserted that the prosecution of service crime is not working. Again, I just want him to be a little bit careful, because his suggestion is that the system is broken. I do not believe that is the case. In fact, we appear to be getting through cases more rapidly than our beleaguered civilian criminal justice system at the moment.

Conviction rates for rape—again, we covered this on 31 October—range from 4% to 75% on an annual basis over the past decade. Those figures are interesting, and, possibly, are the result of the relatively low numbers involved and so, to an extent, might be artefactual. However, what does appear to be the case, and the hon. Gentleman will know this full well, because he will have got briefing notes, just like me, is that we refer more cases to the prosecuting authority than is the case in civilian life.

The reasons for that are complicated. We will see how this develops over time, but one reason might be that awareness of the unacceptability of this, among the service population, is being heightened. I do not want to be complacent, but I am hoping that our efforts towards zero tolerance are working. If so, I would expect the referral rate to be as it is. I think that it might be an indication, although it is always easy, with data, to draw the wrong conclusions.

The fact of the matter is that more cases are referred than in civilian life, and you can deduce, Ms Fovargue, that that means that cases that would not have been referred in civilian life are being referred through the service justice system, and that, when they get to the prosecutor—because we want commonality between civilian and service life—proportionately more of those are not successful.

I think that would be one reasonable conclusion to draw but, because of the relatively small numbers, I think we need to be cautious about drawing conclusions. However, in all of this—running through it like a vein through a block of granite, I hope—is an insistence that we need to do better when dealing with serious crime, in the round, and particularly with sexual offences, as we know full well from what we have seen in the media recently.

On who should have jurisdiction, it is important to note that the final decision is always made by the civilian authority. In areas of doubt, a protocol, which is currently being worked up, will determine whether a civilian or service prosecutor has jurisdiction. However, if there is any doubt or disagreement, the civilian prosecuting authority will have the final say. Also—this has not been mentioned so far, but it is important to say—there is always recourse, ultimately to the Supreme Court. I think it is clear that there is a big interplay between both systems. I would encourage that, and think it will get greater over time. Indeed, everything that we have debated, from the 2021 Act through to these regulations, would underpin that.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport asked what happens when women are disposed of. I am sure he did not mean to say that, but I know what he means. In other words, what happens when the woman on a court martial board has to stand down, through illness or for whatever reason? The answer to that question is that the judge has discretion. He has to weigh what is in the interests of justice. If he feels that the court martial board should be stood down and reconstituted, he will do that. He may think that the court martial board should continue, presumably because it has gone through a great deal of the evidence and is a long way through the process; he may take the view that the interests of justice are best served by the board continuing.

In respect of the new rules on the number of members and whether that will create a disproportionate burden on defence, I do not believe that it will; I think that the benefits far outweigh the costs. However, we plan to keep it under review over the next 12 months to see how it goes. The fact of the matter is that we are extending this to OR-7s. In my parlance, that is chief petty officers; in others’, it is staff sergeants, colour sergeants, and so on. That will increase the cadre of people and, bluntly, the experience and expertise of court martial boards.

Going through the list of things that the hon. Gentleman raised, it is important to make it clear that specialist capabilities, such as forensics, will be provided more or less as they are now, from the Service Police Crime Bureau. I think that the hon. Gentleman was concerned about where the specialist input comes from. Again, we are simply translating what we have at the moment but focusing it under the new unit.

I wonder whether I have missed anything out. I think that I have addressed most of the hon. Gentleman’s points, unless he wants to come at me again. I hope very much that I have answered his points. If he has anything more, I would be more than happy to—

[Luke Pollard]

The armed forces parliamentary scheme.

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman knows full well that that is not a matter for me. However, I am very sure that the defence serious crime unit will be more than happy to have a relationship with the armed forces parliamentary scheme, which is run by my excellent hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) and is a very fine organisation that has benefited a great deal of right hon. and hon. Members. I will be amazed if it does not take an interest in this. Indeed, I hope very much that it will choose to visit Southwick Park and see the new unit after 5 December, when it is stood up.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Armed Forces (Tri-Service Serious Crime Unit) (Consequential Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 2022.

Draft Armed forces (Court Martial) (Amendment) Rules 2022

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Armed Forces (Court Martial) (Amendment) Rules 2022.—(Dr Murrison.)

Ukraine

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Before I make my remarks, I would like to pay tribute to our armed forces and veterans who came together on Remembrance Day yesterday. I was on Plymouth Hoe yesterday morning, but wherever we were we saw a nation pause, thank those who served and remember those who did not come back and those who were forever changed by war and conflict.

We are now on day 264 of Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, and with each day it becomes clearer that he is failing in this misguided war. Putin has not achieved his objectives: indeed, he has strengthened the western alliance, and with each of his decisions he further strengthens our resolve.

The Ukrainian liberation of Kherson, a region Russia had illegally occupied for more than eight months, is a testament to the skill, bravery and fortitude of the Ukrainian military and is a significant blow to the Kremlin. The Ukrainian advance comes only weeks after a ceremony in Moscow in which Putin announced the “forever” annexation of Kherson along with the Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

Russia’s retreat from Kherson is a significant moment in the war, and the withdrawal shines a light on how badly the invasion is going for Putin. He has already forcibly enlisted more than 200,000 new recruits into the Russian army, and with around 100,000 Russian soldiers having been killed or wounded since the war began in February, the casualty rate of poorly trained, poorly equipped troops with low morale remains catastrophic. Body bags and burnt-out tanks are all Putin can offer his people.

As the Ukrainians continue to show incredible resilience in defending their homeland, we must continue to do all we can to support Ukraine both now and in the months ahead. The Minister will know that we on this side of the House fully support the help the Government are providing to our friends in Ukraine, and I want to put on record our thanks to the United Kingdom’s armed forces not only for their work supporting Ukraine and co-ordinating supplies of military aid and humanitarian support, but for reinforcing our allies on NATO’s eastern flank and training Ukrainian troops here in Britain through Operation Interflex.

On Britain’s military help to Ukraine, the Government have had, and will continue to have, our fullest support. We welcome last week’s announcement on the provision of further surface to air missiles to Ukrainian forces and welcome the announcement of support to protect and upgrade Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, but given the parameters of the support we want to provide I wish to press the Minister gently but seriously on some of the uncertainties in that. The UK must support Ukraine for the long term, and I believe that there is cross-party support on that, but that means that we must move beyond the ad hoc announcements made by Ministers about donating weapons to being clear about a long-term strategy for military, economic and diplomatic assistance through 2023 and beyond.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

And humanitarian.

[Luke Pollard]

And humanitarian support. In August, the Government announced that the UK and its allies would begin to establish a plan of action to support Ukraine into 2023, but we still have not seen one. Will the Minister say where it is and why there is a delay in producing the plan? We are running out of 2022—will the report and strategy be ready by the end of the year? What state is it in now, and is it a costed plan or just a set of ambitions? We ask those questions not to put the Minister on the hook or in a bad place but to press him, because we want to see the support gotten right, and scrutiny and clarity for the United Kingdom will help our allies to ensure that they are equally as robust in supporting Ukraine.

Even before the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Labour had been making the case for an updated integrated review. The Defence Secretary previously argued against that, but now argues for it, which is a welcome U-turn from the Government. I know that the Minister has had a similar change of heart, and that is also welcome. However, the Government have given little signal as to what will be in the integrated review refresh and how it will be updated. I would be grateful if the Minister also set out what he believes needs to be updated in the integrated review. Does the review have clear terms of reference that can be scrutinised? Will he tell us which cuts to the armed forces he now wants to reverse and whether further Army cuts will be halted?

At the last Defence questions, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) asked a fair question about why the Government are pressing ahead with cuts to our armed forces before the integrated review reports. What happens if the integrated review says that we should have kept the capabilities and equipment that the Ministry of Defence is scrambling to scrap now?

It is no secret that next-generation light anti-tank weapons have been vital to the defence of Ukraine, but the Secretary of State has yet to adequately explain whether a new contract to replenish UK NLAW stockpiles has been signed, and with whom. NLAW production will require old production lines to be rebuilt and restarted. If an order was placed today, how long would it be before a new NLAW rolled off the production line? Would it really be two years away? If that is true, that delay is dangerous and one that the UK can ill afford.

I turn to a technical but serious area that has not been addressed: dual-use technology, which is civilian technology that can have a military application. Last month, the United States imposed a set of new sanctions on Russia targeting a network accused of procuring military and dual-use technologies from US manufacturers and illegally supplying them to the Russian war machine. The Royal United Services Institute, the UK defence think-tank, confirmed in August that UK components are appearing in Russian weaponry. That can include oscillators and standard crystals. No UK-produced equipment should end up in the hands of Putin and his generals, but it is especially difficult to be sure of that when it comes to dual-use equipment. The House has already passed sanctions on such equipment, but the concern is that western electronics and technologies are still reaching Russian weapon manufacturers. That will be concerning to colleagues, so we need clarity that British firms are not, in good faith, making materials or contributing to the supply chain of western manufacturers whose end products could end up killing Ukrainian civilians.

What steps are the Government taking to identify dual-use technologies that could be used by Putin? What steps is the Minister taking to stop those technologies from getting into the hands of Russia or its agents? Does he feel that the current dual-use technology sanctions are sufficient? What steps can he take, working with our allies, to monitor and shut off possible purchasing routes for Russia of western dual-use equipment like gyroscopes, wi-fi technology, ceramic chips, resistors and semiconductors? This is a complex area, and I realise that I have put the Minister on the spot, with his colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), replying to the debate, so if he cannot set that out, I would be grateful if he put a letter in the House of Commons Library. It is a difficult area but one that we must ensure that we are getting right.

Since the war began, Russian troops have been committing atrocities against Ukrainian civilians. Just as in Bucha, Izium and Mariupol, there is now evidence of Russian war crimes in the Kherson region. We will not know for some time how many civilians the Russians have butchered, but we must be unrelenting in our pursuit of those war criminals until each and every one of them has stood trial for their crimes.

As Ukrainians face the arrival of winter, it is becoming increasingly clear that Putin’s strategy is to target civilian infrastructure, including energy and water plants. The Minister set out some support that the UK Government are providing, but what additional missile defence is the UK providing to its allies to protect Ukrainian infrastructure from missile attacks by Russia? What plans does he have to deal with the potential for an additional flow of cold and hungry refugees this winter? The effect of Russian bombardment of civilian infrastructure is already degrading Ukraine’s ability to provide clean water and power to all of its population, and that will drive a further humanitarian crisis.

I turn to how we can afford the defence of the UK and our allies in Ukraine. The Government’s disastrous mini-Budget cost £30 billion—the equivalent of 60% of the UK’s current defence budget, which could have been better spent on hospitals, teachers and the cost of living crisis. That sheer amount of money—abused by the Government—is the cost of 23 brand-new Type 26 frigates. The MOD is the only Government Department in the current spending round with a real-terms revenue cut each year. New figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that, adjusted for inflation, that is a £2.7 billion real-terms cut to defence spending. At the Defence Committee, the Secretary of State for Defence said that with additional defence inflation, he has £8 billion of additional costs on his budget. If we are to continue to provide support to Ukraine and ensure that we can afford an enhanced forward presence for our NATO allies and our other NATO commitments, we need certainty that funding will be available as required for our armed forces.

I have been re-reading the rather good “Shifting the goalposts?” Defence Committee report, which shows that Labour Governments have always spent more on our nation’s defence than Conservative Governments. Does the commitment to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 still exist? Can the Minister see a point where Government defence spending will fall below the NATO 2% of GDP target? Given the Minister’s and Secretary of State’s previous comments on defence spending, can the Minister say whether he and the Secretary of State will still be in their places if Defence funding is cut in the Chancellor’s autumn statement on Thursday?

[Catherine McKinnell]

On defence spending—I do not believe that this has yet come up in the debate—Putin is clearly using propaganda as a serious weapon in this battle, and it is one that we all have an interest in countering. It would be helpful if the Minister, in summing up, could give some reassurance that the UK is committed to the counter-disinformation unit and working in collaboration with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to ensure that we play our part so that this propaganda does not win in Ukraine or elsewhere?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is right. Putin has invested heavily in disinformation technologies and resources to spread misinformation and disinformation in social media news feeds right across the world, including here in the United Kingdom. That investment was not made on a whim. It was made against a clear strategy, with the wish being to divide, split and misinform western populations and use our democracy against us. To protect our democracy and our allies, we must be absolutely determined to tackle disinformation, misinformation and those dark cyber-activities online. We are talking about not just state-sponsored hacking and cyber-attacks—that is one end of the spectrum—but all our constituents seeing things on their Facebook news feeds that are deliberately deployed and shared to try to split and degrade public opinion and create the impression that the United Kingdom’s support for our friends in Ukraine is somehow coming from a dark place, when it is not. That means further action to strengthen our work on social media. It means looking at where Russia is investing in disinformation and how we can strengthen our civil society against that in future. I hope the Minister and his colleagues, for instance those looking after the Online Safety Bill, will take that seriously, too. It is not just military grade activity we need to look at; it is everything through to how each of us uses our social media.

To conclude, let there be no doubt that Labour Members share the Government’s resolve to support Ukraine for as long as is necessary to defeat Putin. As the Ukrainian countryside turns to mud and then freezes over, we are about to enter an incredibly difficult winter, as military doctrine normally suggests, with frontlines frozen and civilian populations suffering further. The Ukrainians are showing incredible resolve in standing up to Russia, but they cannot do it without continued western support. How we use the winter months to prepare for the expected spring offensives—ensuring our supply lines, commitment, resolve and technologies are available to our friends in Ukraine—will be crucial in keeping the pressure firmly on the Kremlin and ensuring that Ukraine wins.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine has led many NATO members to reboot their defence plans. The Defence Secretary now agrees with Labour that the integrated review needs updating. Would it not be absurd to cut the Army any further when Ukraine and our NATO allies are facing such clear and rising hostility? Can the Minister tell us which cuts he wants to reverse? Can he tell us whether further Army cuts will finally be halted, as Labour has consistently argued for?

[James Heappey]

The integrated review is indeed being refreshed—quite rightly, because in the past nine months we have seen war in Europe and growing belligerence by China in the far east. Exactly what the shape of our nation’s armed forces must look like must be a consequence of those new threats. I am not going to rule anything in or out at the Dispatch Box today, because we need to look at what those competitions with Russia in the immediate term and China in the longer term look like, and what our armed forces therefore need to look like.

Royal Navy: Conduct towards Women

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister, Luke Pollard.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the new Minister to his position. Those who serve in our armed forces should expect the highest standards of professionalism and personal conduct, which must be supported and reinforced by the Government. As the son of a Royal Navy submariner, I know that the Submarine Service is on the frontline of our national defence. Every submariner must be confident that the people they serve alongside in the Royal Navy have their back. These claims of abuse are extremely serious and must be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible must be held accountable.

These reports lift the lid on a culture of abuse and cover-up in our armed forces. In far too many cases, victims are unable to raise their experiences within the chain of command. Women account for 11% of our forces personnel but, between 2019 and last year, 81% of victims of sexual assault in the military were women, and almost half of them were at the start of their military career. Behind these statistics are hundreds of women who have been let down. This cannot be allowed to continue. Victims of sexual abuse serving in our armed forces must have confidence in the processes that allow them to report their experiences, and they must know that robust action will be taken.

I suggest that the Minister reads the Defence Committee’s report before coming back to the House to tell us how he will implement all of it. Will he make the investigation he has just announced a public investigation so we can see what action is needed? Can he explain why the Government continue to resist Labour’s proposal that the most serious cases, including murder, manslaughter and rape, should be tried in civilian courts instead of military courts? What progress has been made on the RAF’s review of allegations of sexual assault, which was announced in August? Will those findings be made public?

Our armed forces are the very best in the world, and they deserve the very best, too. The Government must step up and protect those who protect us.

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points. I agree with him about external scrutiny. That is why the investigation that has been set up, which will report soon, to which I referred, will include an individual from outside Defence, who is currently being selected for his or her independence, probity and integrity, who will be alongside that investigation. I do not know where this is going to go. I suspect it is going to be complicated and may take a while. I want it to report quickly, but I do not want to put a time limit on it necessarily.

However, it is going to report “soon”—that wonderful, plastic term. It will have within it an independent individual —the hon. Gentleman will understand that that is a divergence from the norm—because I am absolutely clear that there needs to be oversight of this that is outside the process. He will know full well that these investigations are conducted properly always—I have been involved with a number myself—but there has to be the appearance also of their being transparent. I hope that that will give him some reassurance.

The hon. Gentleman refers to the Henriques report, most of which of course was accepted. He may also be aware of the joint protocol that will be drawn up for the very serious offences that he cites between the civilian and the service prosecuting authorities. I hope that that goes some way to addressing that outstanding concern that I know he has.

A parallel strand of work is being set up by the commander of the submarine flotilla to look into conduct and culture. That will be headed by Colonel Tony de Reya from the Royal Marines. That will report, I hope, by the end of the year. It is separate from the investigation on the specific that I have cited in my opening remarks, but, obviously, it will touch on much of the same material. I look forward to returning to the House to discuss that once Ministers have had a chance to examine its findings and conclusions.