Defence Reform Bill
Martin Horwood Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Baron
What the Secretary of State cannot get away from, however, is that this is not that sort of report. It would be the equivalent of a speech to the House followed by questions; it would not be subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny and a vote. We are talking about proper scrutiny of the plans. We know that things are not going well. Reservist recruitment targets are being badly missed, TA numbers are falling, there is a widening capability gap as a result and we have deviated from the original plan, as was just clearly confirmed by the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox); the original plan was to maintain the regulars until the reservists could take their place, but that has now been scrapped, and as we keep missing the reservist recruitment targets, the capability gap gets ever wider. These are legitimate questions that we in Parliament should be asking, and we need proper scrutiny of the answers the Government are giving. At the end of the day, that is all we are asking for.
As I have said, the report on its own is not enough, because we need proper scrutiny and a vote in the House, and if it does not bear scrutiny, perhaps that tells a wider story. A number of us, on both sides of the House, have tabled these amendments because we have deep-seated concerns that we believe have not been adequately addressed by the Government. I take no pleasure from saying this, but that includes the response to a well-attended general debate in the Chamber only a few weeks ago, when the Government could not muster one single vote in support of their position. One reason was that we put forward a series of questions, but very few, if any, answers came back.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman’s points about scrutiny might be well-intentioned, but new clause 3 talks about further implementation of the plans being halted. What would be the implication for the process already under way of giving reservists access to the armed forces pension scheme? What signal would it send to our reservists if we practically halted the implementation of a widely supported measure to give them better pension provision?
Mr Baron
I will not, if my hon. Friend does not mind; I am responding to another intervention.
Those TA soldiers were in-filling, but let us not forget that part of the present plan is to deploy reservists as units. That is very different from what has happened before; it represents yet another whole-scale change to the plan. It is therefore only right that we should scrutinise it in detail.
Martin Horwood
I am very grateful to the former Minister for giving way—[Hon. Members: “Secretary of State.”] Former Secretary of State; I beg the right hon. Gentleman’s pardon. He obviously has great knowledge of these issues, but on one he is quite wrong. He says that new clause 3 calls only for a report, but it does not. It is quite explicit: it calls for “Further implementation of the plans” to be “halted”. Why does the Labour party appear to be supporting the interruption of access to better pension provision and explicitly interrupting access to paid leave for training? Surely, that is not what he intends.
Mr Ainsworth
The new clause calls for a pause in certain circumstances, if the House has not been persuaded. To me, it gives time scales that are perfectly achievable, so I reject what the hon. Gentleman says.
Martin Horwood
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Having missed some of the recent debate, I am unclear as to which clause we are precisely discussing—and I really cannot tell from the hon. Gentleman’s speech.
Martin Horwood
In the time available, I would like to say that I think that the background to the Bill is both the challenge of deficit reduction and the greater challenge of a new military and security landscape, to which the Bill forms part of an imaginative and strategic Government response. Those challenges also bring opportunities, such as the opportunity for more efficient and cost-effective defence procurement. We on these Benches and our noble Friends in the House of Lords have raised some questions about the GoCo model, but I think that whichever model is eventually chosen will offer the opportunity to improve on the past history of defence procurement. The other opportunities are obviously those offered for reservists by the Bill, including a new name and status, new employment protections, the new possibility of paid leave—
Defence Reform Bill
Martin Horwood Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Murphy
I take your strictures about our not using the speeches we intend to give tomorrow, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am not making a speech tomorrow—my hon. Friends will be speaking then—so I thought I would say it today.
The point I am making is about procurement, GoCo and DE&S-plus, and the complexity of the deterrent programme in that process. However, what we have learnt today is that the Lib Dem part of the Government has taken two years to review a policy and spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money, only to conclude that the Lib Dems’ past policy was unachievable. Today they appear to have managed to advocate both a Trident-based system and part-time unilateralism simultaneously. That is a real achievement. The British people will marvel at the incompetence of suggesting that we should pay tens of billions of pounds to send boats to sea, while the media are now being briefed that on occasion they will not even carry missiles. That is like someone having a new, expensive burglar alarm at their home with no batteries and a sign above the door saying, “Come on in—no one’s at home”.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman must understand and be accurate in his descriptions. This was not a Liberal Democrat review; it was a review by the Government, insisted on by the Liberal Democrats, which says:
“The analysis has shown that there are alternatives to Trident that would enable the UK to be capable of inflicting significant damage such that most potential adversaries around the world would be deterred.”
Credibility—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. We are in danger of running tomorrow’s debate today. I do not want to do that; I want to get back to the Bill. [Interruption.] No, you are taking the bait, Mr Horwood. It is no use looking to Mr Murphy; we know he is not here tomorrow, but you will be.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
This has been a constructive and positive debate, and I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who made a valuable contribution to the debate along those lines. A discordant note was sounded by the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), who is no longer in his place, when he deviated into tomorrow’s debate on Trident and launched a bit of a pre-emptive strike on Liberal Democrat policy. Since Labour’s policy on nuclear weapons over the decades has itself been a bit of an unguided missile, it might be wise for Labour Members to look at the evidence and consider the possible value of the Trident alternatives review before finalising their policy too quickly.
Other hon. and gallant Members have made valuable and interesting contributions, including the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who is no longer in his place, who mentioned the allocation of command. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) made a stinging indictment of past procurement policy and outcomes, and we would all echo the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), whose remarks about the reservists who died recently in the Brecon Beacons were well made. In a debate such as this it is right to pay tribute to the courage, commitment and loyalty of all our armed forces, and to emphasise that those who die in training are people of no less courage, loyalty and commitment than those who die on active service.
This enabling Bill does not directly mandate the creation of a so-called GoCo procurement system, and neither does it set the terms of single-source contracts, the shape of new reserve forces or the plan for implementing them, as that is done in more detail in the White Paper. It does, however, give the Secretary of State power to change defence procurement and the way reservists are recruited and supported, and I think there is general consensus that such powers are badly needed, and that particularly for procurement, the existing system has not delivered. Let us consider some of the statistics: average timing overruns of 80%; cost overruns often 40% over estimate. Bernard Gray’s 2009 report suggested that we might be wasting as much as £1.5 billion a year through poor procurement. Clearly that cannot go on, and it is right for the Government to take tough decisions to tackle the issue.
That does not mean, however, that there are no possible criticisms of the GoCo model—we have heard some in this debate, and in another place Lord Lee made pointed criticisms about the possibilities of a GoCo. I raised in this Chamber the possible complexity of having various bodies involved in procurement and trying to align it. Those bodies obviously include NATO, the Ministry of Defence, the armed forces and eventual contractors, and now we are inserting the GoCo level into that process. I highlighted to the Secretary of State the possible risks of inefficiencies and complexity entering the system, and his reply was good. He said that any structure contains the risk of inefficiency and waste creeping into the system, and that whatever structure we create, we must focus on good management and monitoring, and good assessment of cost effectiveness and management of contracts. I am sure that is right. It is clear that something has to change, and the Bill is going down the right path.
Part 2 creates the regulatory framework for single-source contracts, which is an interesting case. The explanatory notes to the Bill explain the relevance of EU law, which requires most Government contracts to be subject to an open process involving
“publicly advertising the fact that the contract is available for tender, and then a competitive process to select the successful contractor.”
We have taken advantage, as have other states, of the exemption in the European treaties for
“measures which a Member State considers necessary for the protection of the essential interests of its security”.
That is how single-source contracting has managed to develop on such a large scale. However, it has created the strange anomaly whereby there is currently no legal framework regulating defence single-source contracts, and so we are now putting in place something that will, in effect, regulate those contracts. I could make a small point about the value of the European Union on occasion, when we see exposed the fallacy of the argument advanced by some Members that we are beset by EU rules on all these issues. In this case, we find that where an EU rule does not apply, we feel the need to invent a substitute, and I am afraid that that would be the case in many other examples often cited in this Chamber. This is absolutely the right thing to do. I think we all instinctively know that where there are single suppliers, with no competition and no regulatory oversight, there is a real risk that uncompetitive results will be the outcome. We must address the obvious risk in the procurement of single-source contracts, and the Government are right to do so in this Bill.
Part 3 makes changes to reserve forces. This is a sensitive area to deal with but it is very necessary to do so. As we move further into the 21st century, the threats that our military are asked to counter and the demands on them are changing, and we need to look at a more flexible and light-footed model of personnel. The Government plan by 2020 to change the numbers in the Army from 102,000 to 82,000 regular soldiers but to balance that by increasing the number of reserves from 15,000 to 30,000 by 2018, with smaller increases in the maritime reserve and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, giving us a total reserve armed forces of about 35,000 people. That is a different model that will prove more flexible and more cost-effective but make certain demands as well. If we are to have that level of reliance on our Army Reserve forces, we need to take some of the steps that the Government have considered in providing access to and use of the same equipment and vehicles as regulars, increasing reserves’ training commitments to 40 days a year, and pairing reserve units with regular units for training and deployment purposes.
I might add some ideas such as those put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) about trying to promote reserve liability. He has particularly identified the Gurkhas as a group who might figurehead and lead that process. Automatic reserve liability for the Gurkhas would send a positive signal that we are aiming for parity of esteem between the regular forces and the reserves. We should also be encouraging ex-regulars consciously to engage with the reserves.
I would like to draw attention to work that is being done in a slightly different context by a company based in my constituency. This may sound like a shameless plug for a local company, and perhaps it is, in a way. It is called Omega Resource Group and it is doing interesting work with 1 Rifles based on the employment of veterans, taking ex-regulars and trying to place them in civilian jobs in a way that makes the best use of their skills and markets those skills effectively. Although that might not seem immediately relevant, I think that it is. If we are to try to increase the demands on employers on behalf of our reserve forces, employers have to understand even more than before the value of having soldiers and military people as part of their establishment.
Omega has made a very good case for that. It says that there are widespread myths among employers—for instance, that soldiers have institutionalised thinking and are incapable of thinking out of the box. Omega points out that exactly the opposite is true—that modern soldiers are brilliant at thinking out of the box, problem-solving, and thinking tactically and differently from the way that might be expected. That kind of skill, resilience and flexibility is exactly what we should be trying to sell to employers. We will have to do that selling job because we will be putting greater demands on them if these increased reserve commitments are to be successful. We need to look at companies like Omega and, I am sure, many others that have experience of military personnel—some will already employ ex-military personnel—who can help to make a success of the whole process.
This is an enabling Bill that will allow us to move to a more flexible, light-footed, effective and, not unimportantly, cost-effective armed forces. For that reason, I am happy to join the seeming consensus throughout the Chamber in support of this very important measure.
Armed Forces
Martin Horwood Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I thank the Opposition for this opportunity to pay tribute to the courage and commitment of all our armed forces. My constituency has a strong military heritage, contributing many winners of the Victoria Cross—far more than would be expected from a town of its size. I have had many gallant predecessors myself, too, including the first, and first Liberal, MP for Cheltenham, the hon. Craven Berkeley, and Douglas Dodds-Parker, who was a Conservative MP in the post-war period and who served in the Special Operations Executive in the second world war with great distinction. I should also mention his successor, Charles Irving, who was deemed insufficiently robust for front-line service and famously bayoneted a retired lieutenant-general in the backside while on service in the Home Guard.
More distinguished service was seen by many Gloucestershire soldiers, airmen and sailors in two world wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Korea and in earlier conflicts. The Gloucestershire Regiment is now part of 1 Rifles, whose soldiers still proudly wear the back badge won by the “Glosters” at the battle of Alexandria in 1801, when they showed almost inhuman courage by turning back to back to face simultaneous French attacks from front and rear. They showed equally heroic courage at the battle of Imjin river in Korea in 1951, tragically losing 620 men in that one battle. Gloucestershire’s military tradition is also still represented by the Gloucestershire Hussars. As part of the Territorial Army, it counts Tobruk and Gallipoli among its battle honours. I hope such local connections are not lost in the future reserves development.
We also have the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps in Gloucestershire, an astonishing outfit of 16 nationalities capable of deploying for NATO at five days’ notice. It is, perhaps, a model of the kind of new flexible, fleet military that we need to create for the 21st century.
We also have strong connections to the defence industry, started by George Dowty in the 1930s and now represented by companies such as GE Aviation and Messier-Bugatti-Dowty, and companies like the Omega Resource Group, started by former soldier Jon Penhale. I am very grateful to the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) for meeting me to discuss Omega’s approach to providing employment and training opportunities for soldiers designed by former soldiers and recognising the unique challenges that they face.
Not only are the Government doing the right thing to develop an armed forces fit for the 21st century, with much greater emphasis on better integrated reserves, but they are right to have tackled some of the difficult challenges of the Ministry of Defence budget and defence procurement. Those are difficult things to face up to, but they are necessary steps that have to be taken if we are to make an armed forces that are not only fit for the 21st century in military terms, but financially sustainable.
I am happy to endorse Armed Forces day today—
Mr Speaker
Order. We thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution but we are now going to have a Front-Bench speech from Mr Kevan Jones.
Oral Answers to Questions
Martin Horwood Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Robathan
The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point, about which we are very well apprised. When the White Paper comes out, he will find much that satisfies him. He will know that the Secretary of State has said that we are considering financial incentivisation for employers, and for small employers in particular, who suffer disproportionately. If one person out of a work force in single figures leaves, it has much more impact than one person deploying out of a thousand people from a large employer.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
6. What recent discussions he has had with representatives of former Gurkhas; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)
There have been no recent ministerial discussions with representatives of former Gurkhas. However, the Government place great value on the contribution of Gurkhas, past and present. I am aware of recent approaches by representatives of ex-Gurkhas to other right hon. and hon. Members on a number of issues, including the possibility of ex-Gurkhas joining the reserves.
Martin Horwood
Given the Government’s ambition and determination to create a large, integrated and fully trained reserve force, would it not be a powerful reinforcement of that strategy to give automatic reserve liability to Gurkhas, who have residency rights and, as the Minister rightly said, are famous for their contribution and military skills?
Mr Francois
The fighting spirit of the Gurkhas has never been in doubt. They serve in the Territorial Army and all ex-Gurkhas who are living in the UK can apply to join the reserves. The recently launched TA Live campaign encourages all ex-regulars, including Gurkhas, to join. We hope that as many of them as possible will do so.
Better Defence Acquisition
Martin Horwood Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
As I have already said, Ministers will retain the ability to provide strategic direction. If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will take no lectures from the Opposition on shifting projects to the right at huge cost, because the previous Government shifted the carrier project two years to the right at a cost of £1.6 billion. What was actually done in 2010, in relation to the submarine enterprise, was a reconfiguration of the programme between the Astute class submarines and work on the Vanguard class replacement submarines, which resulted in a delay to the introduction into service of the Vanguard class, but within the overall constraint that we have in this country of needing to sustain a submarine yard at Barrow, and the minimum level at which we can sustain a submarine yard is building one submarine at a time. However we configure them—Vanguard class first or Astute class first—we have to provide that work flow if we are to keep that sovereign capability. That is the kind of single-source procurement that we are targeting in the announcement I made today on the single-source procurement rules.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I commend the Secretary of State for getting to grips with defence procurement, which is long overdue, but does he recognise that there is nervousness in some quarters about the complexity of the emerging process, which will involve the MOD, the armed forces, NATO, the private supplier, the GoCo and the independent cost advisory service? Can he give the House any reassurance that new inefficiencies will not creep into the system as a result of that complexity?
Mr Hammond
I will be very frank with the hon. Gentleman: one of the things I have learnt over the past three years is that new inefficiencies creep in all the time if one is not continually vigilant. That, incidentally, is why, however much one thinks one has squeezed out all the inefficiencies, when one goes back around the loop and looks again one finds more that were not noticed the last time or that have crept in since. He is absolutely right to say that it is a complex enterprise, but within the overall portfolio of defence transformation—we are carrying out many hugely complex projects simultaneously —it is just one of many, and I am confident that we can manage it.
Military Justice System
Martin Horwood Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) on securing the debate. I apologise to her and to you, Mr Dobbin, and particularly to the Minister, because due to the change in timings I have to leave before the end of the debate.
I start by expressing my respect and admiration for the armed forces and my gratitude for the work that they do, including the Royal Military Police, who often investigate alleged criminal offences in difficult circumstances and face unique challenges. Nothing that I am going to say should detract from that at all.
Nevertheless, in the course of military justice and the way it is conducted—not so much to do with the facts of law in any case—some recurrent themes to do with process and transparency seem to occur a little too often. The confidence of the public and the people involved comes from good process and a degree of transparency. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), the former Armed Forces Minister said,
“It ruffles an awful lot of feathers and people of a traditional viewpoint don’t agree, but if it is the view even of the commissioner that there is still a need for an independent ombudsman figure, I think we ought to sit up and take notice of that.”
He is right. I urge the Minister to seriously consider the establishment of such an ombudsman figure.
We are talking about a number of different things in this debate, including complaints, some about matters of law and others about matters of natural justice but not involving the criminal law. I want to focus on the conduct of legal cases, but not the matters of law involved. A number of cases have been mentioned. The hon. Member for Bridgend raised important points relating to those involving sexual harassment and rape, where, of course, the civilian justice system has evolved markedly over recent years in an attempt to be more sensitive and supportive of victims. There may be questions about whether the same kind of progress and evolution has taken place in the military justice system.
Tom Deacon, a former airman, does not contest the facts of an incident in 2007, when he apparently damaged a barrack room door with a vacuum cleaner—that must have been quite a party—but he argues that the criminal conviction he received was unduly harsh. The issue is not so much the legal facts of whether that criminal conviction was right or wrong; in his case, he was not warned that a criminal conviction was even possible in a summary hearing. The summary hearing took place behind closed doors and he did not find out about the verdict until three years afterwards, when it emerged through a Criminal Records Bureau check. His comment to the media was:
“The MoD can do what they like…They are completely above the law.”
I am sure that no hon. Member would necessarily endorse such a harsh judgment, but if there is even a perception of that kind it must give us pause and require us to pay attention to what is happening.
The Minister will be aware of a case that I raised with the Ministry of Defence over several years, which has subsequently been taken up by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who has conscientiously supported a former constituent of mine, Mr Wayne Moore. The Minister replied in detail to an Adjournment debate last year on this case, expressing confidence in the legal outcome and that, in this case, there had been no real prospect of a conviction being secured. Again, this is not the place for anyone to challenge that judgment. Yet I think that the Minister would accept that, in that case, there were missed investigative opportunities—admitted by the Service Prosecuting Authority—unwarranted delays, particularly in the adequate gathering of evidence and poor communication between various military authorities, particularly between the SPA and the Royal Military Police. There was also poor communication between those authorities and Mr Moore, who was at various stages left in the dark for months on end about what was happening in the process. I am sure that other hon. Members will mention other cases.
The creation of an ombudsman in response to such problems with process and transparency will by no means be a panacea. It will not reassure everybody in every case that has not gone the way that they would want it to go—it will not cure all these things, which are sometimes cultural and sometimes to do with the conduct of individual officers and authorities—but it would at least mean that there was some recourse to an independent view of whether the process had been properly carried out. As the Service Complaints Commissioner herself has said,
“The purpose of the Service Complaints Commissioner was to give confidence to people using the system. For five years I said delay is a problem. If you had an independent level of appeal at the end you could simplify the system. It was my view that that would give people confidence in the system.”
Confidence is what we need here. An ombudsman figure would be independent and would be perceived as such. I am sure that an ombudsman would not be able to second guess the legal facts of cases that had become criminal cases, but would be able to investigate process and the conduct of military authorities and to suggest redress, as other ombudsman authorities can. An ombudsman figure would provide a powerful incentive to have better conduct of such cases and it would at least allow failings that had occurred to be identified and addressed by Ministers or the military authorities, even if it could not necessarily bring about redress in every case.
Nobody is above the law and no one is suggesting that the British military are above the law, but greater transparency and scrutiny, and access to independent review, might ensure that that is also seen to be the case.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I am not going to talk about specific cases. I want to talk about the system of military justice, just to put it on the record. Military justice is superimposed on civilian law. It is an addition to, not a subtraction from, the civil law of our land. Military law imposes additional responsibilities on people who are subject to it. Military justice has evolved recently. It has changed quite a lot—notably in 2006—and was amended in 2011.
Criminal cases in the Army are investigated by the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police, and I understand that there is an SIB element in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force as well. The Special Investigation Branch of all three services deals only with criminal investigations. The SIB is independent of the military chain of command. Its investigators report directly to the Director of Service Prosecutions, who is currently Bruce Houlder, QC. He and not the military authorities decides whether a serious prosecution should go ahead. I accept the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) was talking about the interface with complaints, but I will talk specifically about the system—if it works, which it normally does.
The system itself is okay, but it does go wrong, normally because of human beings. In 2010 Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate reported that the Service Prosecuting Authority was one of the most successful areas that it had investigated throughout the land. The military justice system has of course changed—quite significantly—since I left the Army in the dark ages of 1996 but, in principle, it still consists of three levels. First, normally, a person charged under military law appears in front of his or her sub-unit commander—in the Army, for instance, usually a company commander, normally a major. Those charged have the right to have a friend or adviser present. They also have the right to opt for court martial should they so wish. If a sub-unit commander deals with a case of petty discipline such as insubordination, the accused has the right to appeal up to 14 days thereafter, against both the verdict and the punishment.
The next level is the commanding officer—normally, in the Army a lieutenant-colonel, in the Navy a commander and in the Royal Air Force at least a wing commander. Again, the accused has the right to have a friend or adviser present—they are clearly told about that right—or they can opt for trial by court martial, if they so wish.
Martin Horwood
My hon. Friend is speaking from great knowledge and experience, but one of the complications, as in the case of Mr Moore, my former constituent, is that a civilian is sometimes the alleged victim. The SIB process, therefore, which was involved in his case, is particularly untransparent to people who are not part of the military.
Bob Stewart
If a civilian is involved, as I understand it, civilian police and civilian court proceedings deal with the case. I do not know any specific instances and I am not going to go through it, but that is my understanding from when I was a commanding officer—a long time ago, as I said.
At commanding officer level, the accused has a right to have a friend or adviser present. Again, however, he or she can opt for trial by court martial. If convicted and sentenced, that person also has 14 days in which to appeal.
At the third level is the possibility of a court martial, which is obviously for serious cases. Again, accused personnel in such circumstances have the right to be represented properly—normally, in courts martial at which I have been present, by someone quite senior, such as a Queen’s counsel. The armed forces insist that things are done properly, and such people are brought out to wherever the court martial is taking place. Someone convicted by a court martial has the right to appeal to the court martial appeal court, which operates as part of the Court of Appeal and consists of civilian judges—nothing military. I am trying to point out that the system includes a largely civilian component.
In summary, there will always be cases in which military justice could have been improved. In general, however, the system itself is pretty good for all members of the armed forces, and indeed for civilians who work under military law. I note the time, so I will now sit down.
Afghanistan
Martin Horwood Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
As the hon. Gentleman knows and as we have discussed in this House before, the situation in Pakistan, particularly in the federally administered tribal areas, is extremely complex, as is the engagement of the Pakistani intelligence agency in activities there. We are seeing a clear political direction from the Pakistani civilian Government towards engagement and constructive working with the international community and Afghan partners, but we are also seeing a clear indication that the military are now thinking hard about where Pakistan’s long-term interests lie. They know that there are only two years left of ISAF combat presence in which to sort this out and they are engaging with international partners and the Afghans in a much more constructive way than we have seen for many years.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
The Secretary of State quite rightly says that the relationship between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Taliban will be central to any peace, which we all hope will include respect for the rights of girls such as Malala Yousafzai, who is surely one of the bravest teenagers in the world. Does the Secretary of State detect any lasting shift in Pakistani public and political opinion and in attitudes towards the Taliban following on from her extraordinary example?
Mr Hammond
I think that the answer to that must be yes, that has had an impact on Pakistani public opinion. There is also evidence that the Taliban is moderating some of its more extreme views because it recognises that they are costing it popularity with the population.
Oral Answers to Questions
Martin Horwood Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
10. What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on increasing support for veterans in finding work.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
15. What support his Department is providing for veterans seeking employment; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)
With permission, I shall answer these questions together as I understand that they have actually been grouped.
The MOD regularly meets the Department for Education, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Work and Pensions and others regarding initiatives to assist service leavers in making a successful transition to civilian life. Prior to leaving, all service personnel are entitled to some form of resettlement assistance, consisting of time, money and training, according to length of service. Those who serve six years or more, and all those medically discharged, regardless of how long served, are entitled to the full resettlement programme, which includes a three-day career transition workshop, the use of a career consultant, a job-finding service, retraining time and a retraining grant.
Mr Francois
I do not believe that my right hon. Friend attempted to do that. The hon. Gentleman’s first point was addressed directly in an earlier answer by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I agree that we should endeavour to do the best for our service men and women when they leave the service—it is part of the armed forces covenant—and on that I can offer the hon. Gentleman some specific good news and one direct example: BT is set to bolster its current work force by recruiting 250 further engineers from service personnel already committed to leaving the armed forces. That will make a total of 1,000 people whom BT has taken on under that heading, and we welcome that.
Martin Horwood
Given the worrying statistics on the problems faced by ex-service people in gaining employment, would Ministers be interested to hear that 1 Rifles is working with Omega Resource Group from my constituency in developing veteran-specific employment programmes? Is that something they would like to hear more about, and should it be considered in Lord Ashcroft’s review?
Mr Francois
I would indeed be interested to hear more about that, as I am sure will be Lord Ashcroft. I know for a fact that, for instance, the Rifles have been working on projects to help seriously wounded ex-servicemen to engage in archaeology. A number have gone on to study archaeology or have applied to study it in further or higher education as a result of that initiative. The Rifles have an active programme in this regard, and we commend them for it.
Dr Murrison
Sir John Holmes, in his excellent review published in July this year, accepted all the principal parts of the rules that go behind or underpin medalling in this country. We have to accept that the integrity of our medalling system is peerless. Nevertheless, Sir John will report further towards the end of the year on the rules that apply to medalling and will deal specifically with the Arctic convoy and various other circumstances.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
T9. Following the failure of the talks between EADS and BAE Systems, will the Government tell us about any more promising avenues for European defence co-operation that they are pursuing?
Mr Philip Hammond
It is not for the Government to pursue arrangements for the future of BAES, EADS or any other company, but we will of course listen carefully with an open mind to any proposals brought to us by any of these companies. Where we hold a golden share—a veto share—we will allow any such transactions to proceed only where the United Kingdom’s vital national interests can be protected.
Afghanistan (Force Protection)
Martin Horwood Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
We have a programme for the protection of Afghans working for UK forces, particularly interpreters, and are working on a programme to ensure their protection post-2014, when we withdraw from our combat role.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
The coalition’s path towards handover to the Afghan forces is right. One of the most important contributions that the Afghan forces can make is to counter-intelligence. Has the Secretary of State received any assurances from Mr Karzai and his Government that effective Afghan counter-intelligence is being developed?
Mr Hammond
The Afghans are developing capabilities such as counter-intelligence, but they are still, at this stage, heavily dependent on ISAF support for technical advice and technical enablement. The strategic plan envisages that that support will continue for another two years as we draw down from the combat role.
Wayne Moore
Martin Horwood Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
May I start by welcoming the Minister to his place and his new role, and also extend my thanks to him for contacting me in advance about this evening’s debate? I am very pleased to have secured this Adjournment debate concerning my constituent, Mr Wayne Moore. I sought this debate as a previous Government Minister had refused to meet me about my constituent and because of the appalling way he has been treated. I will set out the facts and the key issues.
In May 2008, Wayne Moore was working as a chef in Germany, as a self-employed contractor for an agency employed by the Ministry of Defence. On 25 May 2008, he was seriously assaulted by a serving member of the British forces. He was so seriously hurt that he had to be revived twice. This attack has had considerable consequences for Wayne in terms of continuing illness, long periods of not being able to work, depression and anxiety, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder.
After the attack, I would have expected the Royal Military Police immediately to carry out a thorough investigation to put a case together for the relevant prosecuting authority to act upon in a timely manner. However, what appears to have happened is a very shoddy, inadequate investigation. We now know that although CCTV had been viewed at the time, it was not captured as evidence. Forensic evidence was not obtained and medical evidence was not properly sought and looked at. It is important to note that the Special Investigation Branch originally took a statement from Wayne. That happens only when serious assaults take place, which indicates the severity of the attack. I understand that the assailant was identified by a witness, but Wayne was never invited to confirm the identity of the attacker. It came to light later, when a local MEP asked whether the German police had been notified at the time of the assault, that once again a mistake had been made in the initial investigation as the RMP had wrongly thought both assailant and victim were British forces; it had not even been bothered to find out that Wayne was a civilian.
Of further concern was the fact that after such a vicious attack on a contractor of the British Army, the British Army provided no victim support or other care and advice to Wayne. He was not contacted or kept informed of the progress of the case in those early weeks and months, and this pattern was to continue for the following four years. So Wayne contacted his then constituency MP, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), who wrote to the MOD on 14 August to find out what was going on, asking whether Wayne would be asked to confirm the identity of his attacker and whether there was to be an identity parade. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman and his caseworker, Roberta Crawley, for their hard work and persistence over the years that followed in challenging the Ministry of Defence on Wayne’s behalf. I also pay tribute to Paul Carbert, in my office, for his work over the past year.
The first letters from the MOD initially claimed that Wayne had left Germany and not given contact information to the Army. That was wrong and the MOD later had to admit that contact information had been provided by Wayne in June. It also said that an identity parade would be arranged, and a video identity parade by electronic recording was scheduled to take place at Wayne’s home on 23 September 2008. However, less than 24 hours before, on 22 September, he was told it was to take place at a barracks, which was both insensitive, because of the location of the attack, and very short notice. After the ID parade, nothing further was heard. Wayne had to chase the outcome and be told that he had identified the wrong person. That was never confirmed to him in writing.
On 15 November 2008, the MOD said that the case file was being completed and would be sent on to the appropriate authority and, once it was finalised, Wayne would be sent an inquiry outcome notification letter to update him on progress. On 26 November 2008, a letter was apparently sent to Wayne, but he never received it. If the Minister looks at that letter, he will find that it certainly gives the impression that the case had been sent to the prosecution authorities and that the perpetrator would be brought before the courts. As Wayne did not know that, he contacted his MP again and the hon. Member for Cheltenham wrote again on 15 December 2008 and 13 February 2009 raising concerns about what was happening and about the conduct of the investigation. On 9 March 2009, the MOD stated that a letter had been sent on 26 November 2008 but also agreed that a review of the investigation was to take place. A letter dated 31 July 2009 from the relevant Minister said that the review was taking longer than expected but expressed the hope that he would be able to advise of the outcome in the near future.
I now want to refer to the letter that then did follow, that of 19 August 2009, which listed the findings of the independent review of the military police’s involvement in the case. I shall read a couple of sections of that letter. It came from an MOD Minister and it stated:
“In summary, the Reviewing Officer has concluded that although there were missed investigative opportunities in this case, these errors would not have altered the outcome of the investigation. Nevertheless, it would appear that the RMP and the Army did not provide Mr Moore with the support that he should have been able to expect from this Department. I apologise for this and I can assure you that a number of lessons have been learnt.”
“As part of the Review, the RMP Reviewing Officer identified a number of missed investigative opportunities: CCTV footage was viewed but not recovered; potential witnesses to the assault were not identified; opportunities to recover medical and forensic evidence were missed and there were unnecessary delays, which in one case led to a witness declining to provide identification evidence. Importantly, there was a general lack of higher level supervision which led to the investigation as a whole taking too long.”
It continued:
“While the identification of further witnesses and more complete medical evidence may have given the Commanding Officer and his legal advisers a more detailed understanding of the facts, it is the view of the Reviewing Officer that this would not have changed the outcome of the investigation.”
It also said that the reviewing officer had “highlighted failings” in relation to
“how Mr Moore, as a victim of crime, was kept informed of progress of the investigation and of the subsequent decision not to charge the alleged offender with any offence.”
It also commented on how the outcome notification letter could have misled anyone reading it.
As a result of that letter, Wayne Moore had a personal meeting with the reviewing officer, Lieutenant Colonel Grainger, who, it transpired at the meeting, was ignorant of many of the facts of the case. He thought that there had been “a coming together” of the two men, but did not know that Wayne had been resuscitated twice and also that the SIB had been involved. In Lieutenant Colonel Grainger’s own words, it would have been involved only in life-threatening cases.
So the hon. Member for Cheltenham wrote asking for a further review on 23 October 2009, and in February 2010 the relevant Minister sent the case to the independent case file assessor. In April 2010, the independent assessor recommended a more detailed look at the medical evidence and at whether any variation to the seriousness of the original offence should be considered.
On 8 September 2010, we had a new Government and a new Minister. The Minister wrote that he was getting on with obtaining the medical evidence and that it would be sent to the Service Prosecuting Authority. On 31 March 2011, the Minister wrote again saying that it had taken a long time to get the medical evidence and that he was now seeking information from the SPA on how to proceed.
Further chasing letters were sent by the hon. Member for Cheltenham in May, June and July 2011. Finally, an e-mail from the SPA in July 2011 confirmed that the case had never been referred and a letter from the Minister in September 2011 admitted that the case had never been passed on. That is one year’s further delay in Mr Moore’s case. I became involved in the case in October 2011.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate and for the extremely diligent and committed way in which she has pursued and taken up this very disturbing case. Does she agree that it demonstrates a truly appalling series of failings in the investigations, the administration of the case by the different authorities, the communications between them and, above all, the communications between those authorities and Mr Moore, who has only ever sought justice for the injuries he received?
Diana Johnson
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point, which he makes very well. It clearly sets the context of the debate.
I met Wayne in October 2011 when he moved to Hull and on 31 October 2011 I raised concerns with the then Minister about the fact that the case was progressing so slowly. The Minister said that the case was still under consideration by the SPA and I chased that again. Wayne finally received a letter dated 10 April 2012, nearly four years after the original assault. It stated that the SPA had concluded that there was no realistic prospect of conviction, and suggested that Wayne was drunk when the attack happened and that the attacker was acting in self-defence. That was the first time that this version of events had been suggested and I must say that I was shocked that after four years Wayne was being accused of assault. It also occurs to me that if the Army really thought that that was what had happened, it had completely failed in its responsibilities to investigate the case fully.
I therefore asked for a meeting with the Minister to discuss the case on 23 May 2012. I was refused, which is why I have come to the House and why I sought a debate from Mr Speaker. I believe that there has been a catalogue of errors and incompetence from start to finish in the investigation of the attack on Wayne Moore. From the file it is quite clear that Ministers were signing letters in good faith, but I believe that those letters were misleading in retrospect. The Ministry of Defence needs to look very carefully at how Ministers were put in that position.
I believe that the MOD has to explain a few things. The first is the delay and incompetent investigation by the military police at the start. I find it incomprehensible that the MOD could conclude that the missed investigative opportunities would not have altered the outcome of the case. Secondly, the MOD must explain the lack of updates and support for Wayne, a victim of a serious assault, and its failure to deal with matters in a timely way. Thirdly, it must explain the perceived bias of an investigation in which the alleged attacker was a member of the armed forces and the victim was a civilian. Fourthly, it must explain why the first review was carried out by Lieutenant Colonel Grainger, who clearly did not know the facts of what had happened, and whether the MOD feels that a new review should now take place with all the evidence made available.
I think that the MOD should apologise to Wayne for how the Department has acted over the past four years and for trying, four years on, to claim that Wayne Moore was the perpetrator of the assault when that question was never raised before and has caused him enormous distress. I realise that the Minister present this evening is a new Minister, but I hope that he has some answers for Mr Moore, who feels very aggrieved about how he has been treated. He is a law-abiding citizen who is doing his best and who has been out of work for many years now, and he feels that he has been very shabbily treated.