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

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 8th October 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I am going to call Peter Gibson on a supplementary and then I will come to you, Mr Anderson.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

Q Charles, given that your principal objection to the Bill as it is drafted is in respect of your perceived view that it breaches the armed forces covenant, can you give us some examples of how you think that might manifest itself?

Charles Byrne: I think this is a point we have covered previously, so forgive me if I repeat myself. I think it is the same sort of question. We have seen the evidence that there are 19 cases where veterans’ families would not be able to bring a claim against the MOD because it would fall out of the proposed six-year time limit after the point of knowledge and all those other caveats. Those are the examples that we think would follow from the Bill and that is only of the ones that we know, and the ones where the data exists, for Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Peter Gibson]

Q How would you propose to improve the Bill, if we were to improve the Bill, to rectify that? How would that be done?

Charles Byrne: That is a good and fair question, which the Minister has also asked us, to which we say, in fairness, that we think that is your job. It is our job to try to point out where it can be improved, but not how. That is a bit unfair, but that is the way it works.

[Stuart Anderson]

Q This is the first Bill Committee that I have sat on as a new MP, and I have watched the process get to where it has got to already, notwithstanding the years it has taken to get to this stage. On Second Reading, and even in our last witness session, there were multiple calls to stop the Bill. If we produced a Bill that had everything in it that the British Legion has asked for, there would still be an organisation against the Bill. I saw on Tuesday that, broadly, veterans are in favour, legal firms are not. I am trying to figure that one out and I am sure I will get there in the end. What will the impact be for the veteran community if the Bill does not pass Third Reading and come into law? I ask that to General McColl first. If the Bill is stopped, what will the impact be on the veteran community?

General Sir John McColl: Both Charles and I started off this hearing by saying that we welcomed the intent of the Bill. What veterans want to see is the pernicious harassment of veterans following operations by the legal profession stopped. If the Bill achieves that, they would regret the fact that it had been stopped.

I accept that there may be some trade-offs in doing so. Whether or not it is a breach of the covenant, there will be roughly 6% of people who may have brought cases against the MOD or the Government who can do so now and who will not be able to do so in future. We would wish to see that ameliorated. We would wish to see that in some way worked around. It is up to the Government to see if they can do that. The bottom line—I think that is what your question is getting at—is that we want to see harassment stopped. There may be some compromises required in doing that.