Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill (Second sitting)

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Stuart Anderson]

Q Mr Larkin, you did touch on it, but do any of you believe that the Bill provides a blanket amnesty in any way, shape or form for armed forces personnel?

John Larkin: I have given my view on that. The short answer is that it does not.

Professor Ekins: I agree with John.

Dr Morgan: I think “blanket amnesty” is a very overblown way of putting it, if we are talking of criminal prosecutions after the five years. It is establishing presumption, and that is what should be referred to. Having said that, the stronger the presumption is against prosecution, the closer it approaches that. The weaker the presumption is, the less protection it gives to the service personnel in question. So there is obviously a balancing act, but, as it stands, I do not see it as an amnesty; that is a misdescription.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

Q If the Bill’s intent is to protect service personnel, what steps should be taken to improve the Bill as drafted?

Professor Ekins: To my mind, the major problem of the Bill—this is a major absence, but it would be quite a substantial policy change to introduce it—is that it does not really address the extraterritorial application of the Human Rights Act. That is the main driver behind some of the difficulties we have seen in the last 10 or more years in a whole range of ways. That includes requiring continued investigation and litigation—sometimes from enemy combatants relying on the Human Rights Act while UK forces have been in the field. The Bill could be improved—although, as I say, it would be a major change—by limiting the extraterritorial application of the Human Rights Act.

That would be, in a sense, restating the position that our senior judges understood before the European Court of Human Rights extended how jurisdiction was understood. I think that would also be much more consistent with the way in which Parliament understood the Human Rights Act when it was enacted in 1998. The ECHR and the Human Rights Act really have been extended by a series of problematic judgments, and a Bill on this subject could usefully roll that back. That might mean that the Human Rights Act simply applies in the United Kingdom, or alternatively—this may be more plausible as a prospect for enactment—it might allow for limited extraterritorial application, in the limited way that was understood to be possible in 2003 when the European Court of Human Rights gave a significant judgment on the point, as well as by the House of Lords and the Supreme Court in the years to follow. That would address the problem of being unable to stop investigations and being exposed to litigation that requires the continuation of investigations, when the Government think that that is unfair to the personnel. The Bill does not address that—save, perhaps, by encouraging Ministers to derogate from the ECHR.

John Larkin: There is a lack conceptual clarity in part 1—[Inaudible.]

[The Chair]

Mr Larkin, we are sorry but we are not hearing you very well. Do you want to try to speak a bit closer to your microphone?

John Larkin: There is a lack of conceptual clarity in part 1 of the Bill with respect to the prosecutorial task. As the Committee will know, the prosecutor’s task breaks down into two parts. First, they ask themselves whether the evidential test is met. If it is, they consider whether a prosecution would be in the public interest. That is the approach taken in all three UK jurisdiction—[Inaudible.]

[The Chair]

We are still struggling, I am afraid.

John Larkin: Clause 1 of the Bill puts no time limit on assessment of the evidential test. But then, when one looks at clause 3, subsections (1) and (2) tend to reduce the person’s culpability. Culpability is at the core of criminal liability—it is synonymous with criminal liability. There may be value in amending the Bill to permit the prosecutor to take a global view.

The Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland, in its code for prosecutors, permits the public prosecutor to take a view based on the public interest test, sometimes—exceptionally—in advance of full consideration of the evidential tests, so if one has a sense from the beginning that the case is going nowhere, one should not have to go through what might seem to be a very empty exercise of none the less carrying out the evidential test in full. There could be an expressed power, by amendment, given to prosecutors to determine in advance of consideration of the full evidential tests. As you rightly note, clause 3(1) sits ill with clause 1’s exception of the evidential consideration.

[Peter Gibson]

Q Can the witness write to us with his answer to that? It was not entirely audible to us here in the room.

[The Chair]

Are you happy to do that, Mr Larkin? We did not hear all of what you said. Members may have got the general thrust of what you were saying, but we did not get the detail.

John Larkin: I am happy to do that. It is a technical point, so it might be of assistance to Committee members if it were reduced to writing.

[The Chair]

Thank you for that.

[Peter Gibson]

Q Thank you, Mr Larkin. I will ask the same question to Dr Morgan.

Dr Morgan: I would approach the question in two ways. One would be, “How would I improve this Bill?” and the other would be, “What would I do if I was starting with a blank sheet of paper?” You would get two quite different answers, but I will start with the second one.

[Peter Gibson]

Let us have both approaches.

Dr Morgan: Okay. To start with the second one, it seems to me that the problem in this area is lawfare or the judicialisation of war—whatever you want to call it. The extension of the European convention on human rights into this area as a result of the European Court’s decision in Al-Skeini, and the decision of our Supreme Court in Smith v. Ministry of Defence, which confirmed that and extended the law of tort into the battlefield, led to the erosion of combat immunity. To me, that should be the priority for any legislation on this difficult and multifaceted problem.

The section of the Bill that partly deals with the issue is the derogation provision and the duty on the Minister to consider derogation. It is not a duty to derogate; it is a duty to consider doing it, which is putting into statute the Government’s policy. It seems to me that that is valuable, although it does not change very much.

In its consultation paper published in June 2019, the Ministry of Defence said it was going to look at restatement of combat immunity, hand in hand with a no-fault compensation scheme for service personnel to pay damages on the full tort measure. Those two things should go together. I regret that last month, in reply to the consultation, it said that legislation on the issue is

“not being taken forward…at this time.”

I think it should be. The priority should be to restate combat immunity and, hand in hand with that, to have no-fault compensation for service personnel on the full compensation measure that you get if you bring a claim in law.

If that were done, it would help with the problem about the shorter limitation periods for tort claims—damages claims—that was raised several times at Second Reading. The British Legion has been quoted several times saying that that breaches the armed forces covenant. I do not want to get into that particular debate, but there is no question that service personnel might, in some fairly unusual situations, find their ability to bring damages claims caught by the proposals in part 2 of the Bill as it stands.

If the Ministry of Defence took forward the proposal that it called “Better combat compensation,” to have full compensation through the armed forces compensation scheme, those worries would fall away. If there was full compensation available without the need to bring a tort claim or negligence action against the Government, any limitations on the time periods for bringing tort claims would be an irrelevant question for service personnel.

Those are two reasons why I would revive what seems to have been the Ministry of Defence’s approach at one point, which was restating combat immunity and ensuring full, no-fault compensation. If you want me to give more detailed comments on the provisions of the Bill I can do that, but I would approach the issues in a quite different way than in the Bill that we have.

[Mr Jones]

Q In the case of no-fault compensation, would that then be within the existing armed forces compensation scheme? How would you change that?

Dr Morgan: The proposal to make that switch is in the joint paper produced by Richard Ekins, Tom Tugendhat and myself that I mentioned at the start. We said in that paper that that there is a case for having a more generous strand within the armed forces compensation scheme applying to those soldiers who cannot bring tort claims at law. In other words, if Crown immunity in warfare were to be revived—the Government already have the statutory power to do that, they do not need an Act of Parliament—and it was decided that you cannot bring claims at all, there would be a case for having a more generous approach within the armed forces compensation scheme to those people. I would not necessarily say the whole armed forces compensation scheme should be upgraded—I am aware of how expensive that would be. If we are going to restrict tort claims of a certain sub-category of injuries to service people, then it would be a good idea to balance that out by having full compensation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Anderson]

Q If they are successful, what percentage is taken from the soldier’s claim, on average, for the solicitors?

Ahmed Al-Nahhas: It depends on the terms offered by the lawyers. They can vary, typically between 15% and 25% of the damages that are recovered. There are certain caps, but that is typically what you might find in the industry.

[Peter Gibson]

Q I have two quick questions for Ahmed. In terms of the claims that you have brought for veterans, how many times have you had to use the dispensation of limitation under section 33? And are you able to share with us your success rate in terms of the claims that you win and those that you lose for veterans?

Ahmed Al-Nahhas: As I am representing APIL, I would not be able to share specific numbers, but I am very happy to share my experiences on section 33. I would say that it is a small fraction of cases that are pursued that will have to rely on section 33.

[Peter Gibson]

Q Just to put some data on that, how many claims does a small fraction look like in practice, over a period of 15 years?

Ahmed Al-Nahhas: To give you an idea, it may be that two out of 100 cases that we manage would be at risk of being out of time—maybe 5% at most. On whether or not you succeed with a section 33 argument, well, the only time I went to court on a section 33 argument, I lost. I took it to the Court of Appeal, and I lost there, too. I think that might indicate to you how difficult it is to succeed there. The judges really do not engage in a liberal application of section 33.

As a lawyer, if you are partaking on a case that is out of time, you need to be brave, and it is very rare. Often or not, in some of these cases where there is a section 33 argument, they may be settled along the way, but the fact that the claim is out of time might be a factor that affects the settlement figure. I hope that answers your question.

[Peter Gibson]

Q Thank you. So it is incredibly rare that you would need to use section 33.

Ahmed Al-Nahhas: In answer to your direct question, yes, it is incredibly rare that you use it, but that is dependent on the lawyer and whether they are willing to take on riskier cases. On the whole, it is not something that lawyers engage in easily. But the key about section 33 is that you will come across those cases, like the one I explained earlier involving the widow of the serviceperson, where they are demanding justice. They are worthy cases, and you use section 33 because that is the flexibility in the system. That is the conduit through which judges can achieve justice, even if you are out of time.

[Peter Gibson]

Q My second question is about success and failure. How many cases do you win and how many do you lose?

Ahmed Al-Nahhas: That depends on the definition of win. What is interesting is that most of the claims—civil claims in this area—will tend to settle. The MOD will publish, with the same document I mentioned earlier, the figures in respect of settlements that it pays out. I think that last year it spent £131 million in respect of compensation and legal costs. I do not think it has separated what is legal costs—

[Peter Gibson]

Q I am trying to establish in how many cases you succeed in recovering compensation and in how many you do not. Obviously, one subsidises the other. Are you able to share those percentages with us?

Ahmed Al-Nahhas: I could not give you an accurate estimate here. I am a representative of APIL, representing hundreds of solicitors across the country in this field. It may be that I can provide written evidence, if that would assist the Committee.

[Peter Gibson]

That would be welcome, thank you.

Ahmed Al-Nahhas: Of course. I am sorry that I could not assist you immediately.

[Stuart Anderson]

Q I have a supplementary question about a no win, no fee where a young rifleman has a previous injury. If you or the other solicitors do not deem it to have a good chance of success—those were your words—how would a young rifleman fund his legal case?

Ahmed Al-Nahhas: I have no idea. They may need to rely on charity. They may need to rely on family. They have very limited options. Actually, they often have a big challenge: they need to find a specialist in this field to begin with, because it is not easy to sue the Ministry of Defence and it is not easy to understand the specialties and complexities of such cases. They will often go to another lawyer for a second opinion, and one hopes that that lawyer would take on their case, but there are no guarantees, and particularly on cases that are out of time. You may be going around the houses to tens of lawyers who will all say to you, “I’m really sorry, but you are out of time. There is nothing I can do for you.” That is one of my concerns with the Bill.