Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)]

I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes. I welcome and support the Bill so far as it goes, but, like others who have spoken, I believe it could go further.

I welcome the work of the Service Complaints Commissioner for the Armed Forces in recent years and applaud what she has done within the remit she has been given. I welcome the reports she has issued, and the Government are to be commended for listening to some of the points she has made and recognising, as the Defence Committee and others have said, that further progress needs to be made.

I recognise that a delicate balance has to be struck between the authority of the chain of command and the need for a light to be shone on the activities of the armed forces. We know from the sorts of cases that hon. and right hon. Members have referred to that that has not always happened. I agree with the characterisation of the evolution of the system given by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). When the idea of the commissioner was first mooted, it was claimed that the world would end because it was so revolutionary and it would drive a coach and horses through the traditional conceptions of military authority and discipline, but it has not. It has made some modest and worthwhile progress, but we now need to go further.

Ministers have been right to engage with other stakeholders and to recognise the need to amend the status quo, but their proposals err on the side of caution. I listened with interest to the Defence Committee Chairman describe the five characteristics of an ombudsman system, and my one particular misgiving is that we have not gone further in terms of scope. The Minister said that other ombudsmen restrict themselves to issues of maladministration. That is certainly true of some, but it is not by any means true of all. If one looks at the definitions of ombudsmen more generally, one will see that their purpose is to address the substance of a grievance or a complaint by an individual against an institution or bureaucracy. I do not believe that simply looking at the question of maladministration is an adequate way of doing that.

It is important that the new ombudsman should be able not simply to report on thematic issues to the Secretary of State, but to institute investigations and make reports and recommendations for everybody to see. They should also be able to get at the substance of a complaint. Of course, the chain of command should always get the first go at that. As the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) has said, we cannot compare the relationship between an armed serviceman and the forces in any way to ordinary employment because of the depth of the relationship, which affects housing, families, welfare and service discipline. It is precisely because that relationship is so much more comprehensive that it is important that there should be external scrutiny and a light shone on it. The police, the health service and every other part of our public life has to accept external scrutiny, and I do not believe that the armed forces should be any different.

I shall follow with interest how the debate unfolds in Committee, but it is my belief that the Bill does not go as far as it might and that we are missing an opportunity to take more comprehensive action to improve the way in which complaints are dealt with in the armed forces.