Strength of the UK’s Armed Forces

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]]

I join the Minister and the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), in paying tribute to the Duke of Edinburgh. I pass on my condolences and those of my party to the royal family, and to those in the armed forces for whom he has undoubtedly been an inspiration, having left behind such a long and distinguished career as a member of the forces. As the Minister rightly says, they will be preparing to give the late Duke of Edinburgh the send-off he rightly deserves, and we wish the armed forces the best in their preparations for that.

Like the shadow Secretary of State, I think it would be normal to decry the fact that the Secretary of State has not responded at the Dispatch Box, but I too entirely understand why he has to be at the NATO meeting on Ukraine. It is worth pausing to reflect on the fact that here we sit, in the north-west corner of Europe, in relative peace, while an ally in the south-east corner of Europe, already annexed and at war, faces a further military build-up on its border. The Scottish National party supports entirely Ukraine’s right to its territorial integrity.

In every defence session we have had—whether Question Time, debates or a statement—all Members across the House have rightly thanked the members of the armed forces who have done so much for us during the pandemic in terms of resilience and, not least in more recent times, the roll-out of the vaccine, which we are all desperate to receive. They have put in some shift, as we would say in Scotland. It is curious that the Government have seen fit to thank the armed forces by telling them that they are going cut up to 10,000 places.

The context here is important, and not just that of the pandemic. Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know—not just as a keen watcher of political events in Scotland, but as a proud Scot yourself—that when it comes to the size of the armed forces, and in particular the things the Government say about them, many promises are made to Scots. That has been the case for quite a few years now, and each and every time, this Conservative Government renege on them. I have mentioned that many times before and I am afraid I am about to do so again.

As the Minister and the Government have confirmed—the Minister reiterated it today—that the cut will go ahead, may I ask the Government to outline to the House, if not today then at some point, and to the people of Scotland, to whom those promises were made, what the impact on the personnel footprint in Scotland will look like? Prior to the independence vote a few years ago, we were promised the permanent stationing of 12,500 Regular troops in Scotland. The Government have never come close to meeting that promise and that target, and it is now obvious that they have no intention of ever trying to, so what will the permanent footprint look like after the cut of up to 10,000 troops is realised?

More broadly on context, it is curious and entirely objectionable as far as I am concerned that the Government would announce such a cut in conventional capability— not just in personnel, but in many of the platforms the shadow Secretary of State mentioned—when they announced their intention to allow an increase in the nuclear weapons stockpile. Now, we could probably have an entire debate on that one issue, but given that this debate is about the armed forces, let me just say this. I am with the Chair of the Defence Committee, whose analysis was spot on. He and I do not agree on the nuclear deterrent and its presence, but he described that increase as an attempt to deflect attention from—indeed, it is a sweetener to allies to cover up for it—the fact that we are having such grave cuts in conventional capability. That is fooling no one.

I plead with the Government to drop the fallacy of trying to play one capability against the other. It is important that we invest in cyber, of course. The new threats that the Minister outlined are real and the Government have our support in trying to meet them, but the shadow Secretary of State was also right: people keep the peace, people deliver resilience, and people put covid jabs into arms—not drones, and certainly not nuclear weapons.

It is curious to see the Government now framing this as though those of us who are against the cuts are somehow old fashioned, and are incapable of assessing modern-day threats and developing an argument on how to meet them. The Minister said earlier that we must not—I think this was the phrase—play “military bingo” when it comes to developing the capabilities needed to meet the threats faced. Well, if it is a game of bingo, like the shadow Secretary of State I would like to read some words from the caller, and the caller is the Prime Minister. During the last election, he said that

“we will not be cutting our armed services in any form.”

During the last general election, he also said:

“We will be maintaining the size of the armed services”.

Why did he say that if he had no intention of delivering? Why did he say it if he knew it would not come to pass? Indeed, the Government have developed that habit when it comes to promises on troop numbers. As I said at the start of my speech, is it not curious that this is how we thank our armed forces after the year they have had, committing themselves to fighting the pandemic?

It is also worth noting that, just after that Defence Command Paper came out, we learned via the media—not via a statement to Parliament or anything we could read in the integrated review paper or its associated documents —that the Office for Veterans’ Affairs is to see a budget cut of up to 40%. It already has a tiny budget—of, I think, around £5 million—and it will be cut. That happened in the same week as the announcement, so why did not one single Minister from a Government who claim to be on the side of veterans come to announce that funding cut to the House? It is also worth noting that that announcement—or the news of the cut, rather, because there was no announcement—came in the same week that the Scottish Government announced that they would spend an extra £1 million on support for veterans who find themselves in Scotland.

The Government should cancel the planned cut in troops, and if that costs more money, so be it. Spend it, invest it. We could come up with a million ways in which the MOD could spend its money better, but I have always said to the Government that when they need more cash from Treasury Ministers and when that is sensible, they would have our support. Indeed, they would have the support of many around the House who do not think that this is a wise way to proceed.

We have talked a lot about how we treat the armed forces, and there is a lot of cross-party agreement on that, but amazingly, we cannot seem to get the Government to act. One thing we should do first is prise from the recruitment process the claws that Capita has sunk in so deeply. It is an expensive mess that does nothing for recruitment. The best people to do recruitment are the members of the armed forces themselves, not the share- holders of Capita, who are growing fat on a failing recruitment system.

Let us have a commission to look at pay and conditions. We know from recent National Audit Office reports that only 45% of serving personnel have any sense of job satisfaction—a staggeringly low figure. We also know that less than half of those living in armed services accommodation are happy with that accommodation. How can it be beyond the wit of the Government or the House to get those two things fixed? We have proposed in the past, and I propose it again today—I am sure you will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Bill on the subject published in the last Parliament by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes)—the introduction of an armed forces representative body that could be placed on a statutory footing and represent the interests of members of the armed forces to the Government when it comes to pay and conditions. At the moment, they have no such body. They rely on Members of Parliament so to do, and with satisfaction figures as low as they are, the answer clearly does not lie in lobbying MPs whom the Government are ignoring.

It is right that we are having a debate on the specific issue of cuts in the number of members of the armed forces and in other conventional capabilities. We will have plenty of time to dive into some of the other issues in the integrated review, I am sure. As I made clear when the Secretary of State came to the House for the publication of the Defence Command Paper, there is much in there that we understand and indeed support, but there are some things that we do not and cannot support. Such egregious cuts to conventional capability, especially service personnel, are something we cannot support.

When the Minister winds up, I wonder whether he would clarify two things. First, as the Government seek to pivot, in addition to their geographic pivot to the Indo-Pacific region, and to place more emphasis on cyber and on drones and other unmanned devices in theatres of conflict, and as they seek to do more to protect not just people, but data, which the Government rightly identify as an attack surface, where will be the proper democratic and human oversight? Where will be the ideas from Government on how we lead efforts internationally to design treaties and rules of engagement when it comes to cyber, the use of unmanned drones and the protection of data? That debate is woefully lacking. In fairness, it is lacking not just here but in the entire western democratic sphere. We have not heard much from the Government about how they will seek to put that right, and I think it is incumbent on them to bring forward a strategy on those things.

Lastly, if you will allow me, Madam Deputy Speaker—this relates more to current events than necessarily to the subject of the debate—might I tease out from the Government a clarification with regard to Ukraine? The Secretary of State is at the meeting of the North Atlantic Council right now, and rightly so. Will the Government clarify whether he intends to give a statement to the House following that meeting, and will he clarify what implications, if any, the current escalation in tensions might have for Operation Orbital, which is ongoing in Ukraine with United Kingdom armed forces?

The Minister said that he was able to look members of the armed forces in the eye and convince them of the merits of cutting jobs and places among them. That is good for him, but he still has a job to do in convincing voters—voters to whom he and his Government made promises, not just in the general election in 2019, but all those years ago ahead of the independence referendum. I am not sure he could look voters in the eye with the same degree of confidence that he came to the House and espoused today. I am afraid this is just one more example of Scotland’s security being ill served by a Government who do not place high regard on their own interests.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We now have a formal time limit of four minutes. I call the Chairman of the Defence Committee, Tobias Ellwood.

Integrated Review: Defence Command Paper

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

If my right hon. Friend wants to see what happened to a Russian armoured division, he should look what happened in Syria last year, in the weeks when 172 tanks were wiped out by Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles. I wonder what comfort that would have been to the 3,000 Syrian soldiers—fighting for the wrong regime, however—who no doubt thought that somehow their mass gave them protection. [Interruption.] They were Russian.

In the China-Russia war I think it was, a British officer went to observe and saw the machine gun being used for the first time, and his report back said, “They’re not British. We don’t need the machine gun,” and the rest was history. Therein lies the fault and the fallacy of defence reform. If we wrap ourselves in sentimentality, what we get is a betrayal of the men and women who go to fight.

On other points that the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne raised, we will go beyond the 48 F-35 fighters, and we will continue to purchase them until we have decided whether we have the right numbers to continue. We are on track to deliver the squadrons required as planned and to man our aircraft carriers. There will be no reduction in combat medics as a result of these reorganisations. He and I both know the importance of the role they have played in covid. Indeed, they are a key enabler that will be useful not only for ourselves, but when it comes to conflict prevention and winning the peace.

On the nuclear deterrent, we do not believe that the changes to the number of warheads in any way breach the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and that advice is backed up by the Attorney General. Of course, if the right hon. Gentleman is correct about his party’s new-found love of the nuclear deterrent since his previous leader, or indeed since the shadow Foreign Secretary voted against renewing it, he will of course agree with me that a nuclear deterrent should be credible; otherwise, it would just be a massive waste of money.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Yes!

[Mr Wallace]

I knew that was what the hon. Member from the Scottish nationalist party was going to say; it was predictable. I remember the former leader of the Labour party suggesting to the good people of Barrow that they would be allowed to continue to make submarines, and could maybe use them for tourism purposes. Maybe that is the true version of the Labour party’s manifesto on defence.

I would take on board many of the criticisms and charges by the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne if he came to this House with a mea culpa about his own Government’s role in producing defence reviews over time that were both over-ambitious and underfunded; if he accepted that when we over-sentimentalise our armed forces or avoid taking the tough decisions, the people who suffer in the end are the men and women of the armed forces; and, if he came here and acknowledged that the men and women of the armed forces who I served with who perished, some of them in Snatch Land Rovers, did so because in the end we overstretched, underfunded and failed to recognise that the best thing is to be honest, with a well-funded armed forces that we do not overstretch and with which we are not over-ambitious.

[Mr Wallace]

Asking any Defence Secretary in history if he would like to support an increase in his budget is usually going to get only one response. The reality is that I am dealing with a budget that is incredibly generous compared with my colleagues in other Departments in the middle of this pandemic. Indeed, many people object to the increase in the defence budget. It is a defence budget big enough to allow me to fix the issues of the past and to invest in modernisation.

I understand my right hon. Friend’s concerns, and my answer to him would be about ambition. How ambitious and how global do we wish to be? I do not believe that our security is at threat from this document. I think it provides a very good foundation for our homeland security. What comes next is how much we help our friends around the world and what ambition we have for them. I can give him and the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) the assurance that our defence priority No. 1 is our commitment to membership of NATO, because that coalition and that part of the world—western Europe and the Atlantic—is key to our own security. That comes first, as does, for those on the Government Benches, our nuclear deterrent as our guarantor for security from aggressive states. That is maybe where my right hon. Friend and I will disagree, and we will no doubt explore that, and the extent to which our ambitions are matched, during the Defence Committee meetings.

Where we are today, we can match our ambitions with this defence paper but, as I have always said in this House, if the threat changes, we should always be prepared to change with it. I cannot say what will happen in 2035. I cannot say what will happen even further out from there, and that is why I think that at the heart of this paper is something on which my hon. Friend and I do strongly agree, which is that our approach should, for once, be threat-driven. That should drive what we buy. That should drive how we equip our people. That should drive what we do. We are determined to do it, and as Defence Secretary, it is my job to provide the rest of Government—the Prime Minister and the National Security Council—with the range of options and range of tools to allow them to follow those ambitions.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the paper and his statement, and I apologise to him for the difficulties we had in trying to get each other on the phone earlier. As the Select Committee Chair, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) has said, on behalf of SNP Members, I acknowledge the anniversary of the death of PC Keith Palmer and, indeed, the right hon. Gentleman’s own bravery on that day.

Turning to the paper, I think it does seek to ask some of the right questions. Within the broader context of the integrated review and what the Minister will no doubt reveal to us tomorrow, I can see where the Government are trying to go. The problem we have is that it comes to some of the wrong conclusions, not least—and let me be unequivocal on this—in terms of the increase in the nuclear stockpile. We think that that is an expensive folly that should be cancelled with immediate effect.

However, in terms of the changing nature of threats that the document and the Secretary of the State have outlined, there are some things that are worth exploring and that this House should have debated long ago. We welcome, for example, the investment in space research, not least because my own city of Glasgow produces more satellites than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. But the reliance on technology, which I accept is a new feature of defence and security, and particularly on autonomous weapons, does raise some serious concerns. While the Government have paraded all this flashy, expensive new tech—I understand that hon. Members, and not just those on the Government Benches, get very razzle-dazzled with this stuff—what are we going to see in terms of the proper oversight of its use? We cannot have a situation where killer robots are sent into battlefields with no proper oversight of weapons deployed on our behalf and in our name.

That takes me on to the wider issue of international norms, not just on lethal autonomous weapons, but in terms of data and AI. What are the Government doing not just nationally but to work with partners internationally to develop international norms on this stuff? I accept that Russia and China will always pose a challenge in trying to develop international norms, but I want to hear more about what the Government are doing to do so, especially within NATO.

Turning to the armed forces, it has rightly been mentioned—and I suspect we will hear it again during this statement—that the Secretary of State will have some convincing to do here in Parliament that he will be able to retire the old, bring in the new and not have such a big gap in the middle. On numbers, what will be the impact of the reduction in numbers on the Scottish footprint in 2025? During the past few Defence Question Times I have raised with the Secretary of State the fact that the 12,500 promise made to Scots seven years ago has never been met, so we can now assume that those numbers will be even further from the promise made by his own party ahead of the 2014 referendum. That will be not just a breach of that promise, but a breach of his own manifesto commitment. I accept that the Secretary of State is trying to clear up a lot of what his predecessors have done—indeed, I partly commend him on being honest with the House on that today—but he does have some convincing to do, not just here but back in communities that he knows well.

When will we see something on terms and conditions for the armed forces? We want to see a pay increase for members of the armed forces. We know that four in 10 serving personnel do not believe their pay properly reflects their work. That is work that all of us in here admire; indeed, I have seen it in Castlemilk in my own constituency during the covid pandemic, where we have the vaccination and testing centre. When will the Secretary of State bring forward a real and proper pay rise and give them the money they deserve? Surely that is something all of us in the House could agree with.

[Mr Wallace]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns both about reliance on technology and the human in the loop issue. Britain has been one of the leaders in trying to raise those discussions in places like the United Nations, to ensure that there is a standard that is acceptable—a moral standard, making sure that there is a human in the loop at nearly all times. That is important for reassurance.

On AI and data, Britain leads within NATO on cyber. It pushed NATO to examine cyber, but not in being a cyber nation—Estonia is probably one of the greatest cyber nations, although there is a data issue that I am sure the hon. Gentleman’s party would disagree with about relying on data that much. But fundamentally it is incredibly important, and Britain’s work alongside some of its allies in NATO has pushed NATO to look at both hybrid threats and cyber and to start making sure that it reforms and modernises to address that.

I understand the concerns about troops and personnel in Scotland. There are over 28,000 people currently in Scotland who rely directly on defence: that is the civil servants, the regulars, the reserves and in industry. When we send the E-7 Wedgetails up to Lossiemouth there will be an increase of a few hundred people to work in that part of the world, which is to be welcomed. Decisions exactly on where the Rangers will be and how it will develop will come soon. What I will say to the hon. Gentleman is that it is a tribute to Scottish infantry and Scottish heritage that 1 Scots will become the seed of the Rangers. For anyone who knows Scottish military history, the Lovat Scouts and brave souls like that have set the fierce reputation of Scottish soldiers around the world. I hope that that will be recognised as they go forward.

On pay and allowances, I have started a process of reviewing allowances. On the allowances I have already signed off, I chose to protect the lowest paid at the expense of the highest paid. I am not a socialist. I would not be surprised if the hon. Gentleman might be —[Interruption.] Or he might not. However, I felt that the lowest paid should be protected, as well as overseas allowances and individuals with children. Of course, if the hon. Gentleman’s Government in Scotland would like to pledge to give our troops in Scotland the same £500 bonus they have given NHS staff, we would be absolutely delighted. Perhaps the extra tax that the SNP—[Interruption.] I’ll tell you what, Madam Deputy Speaker, maybe the hon. Gentleman has an opportunity here. I will do a deal with him. If he will cover for one year the extra money we pay to mitigate the tax burden that falls on Scottish soldiers, we shall pass that on to them. Would he like to do that now? He has the chance. [Interruption.] I think the Scottish National party are busy spending all that money on lawyers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

No; I do not have responsibility for the Prime Minister’s advisers, clearly. On satisfaction around pay, I am clear that pay is one of the reasons that people stay in the military. If the hon. Member looks forward to the integrated review, we will be looking to announce a direction of travel on this matter in due course.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

On behalf of the Scottish National party, I send our condolences to Sergeant Hillier’s family.

The issue of pay rises and satisfaction more generally has been a bone of contention in the House for many years. The numbers speak for themselves; four in 10 serving personnel do not think that the pay they receive reflects the work they do. Why?

[Johnny Mercer]

The crushing irony of our people who work in Scotland having to pay more in tax and therefore take home less pay and the hon. Gentleman raising this point is not lost on those who serve. Pay is a one of a number of factors that people speak about when the armed forces continuous attitude survey comes through. It is by no means the primary factor. We are constantly reviewing it and I am comfortable that we offer a world-class package to our people.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Yet again, the Minister is rather poorly briefed. The lowest-paid members of the armed forces in Scotland actually pay less in tax. If he wants to talk exemptions, that is a power that lies in the Treasury; it is not a tax power that lies with the Scottish Government. But let me press him on this: when the integrated review is published tomorrow, will it contain something—anything at all—to reverse the trend on satisfaction, and will he apologise to the armed forces, who have had a kick in the teeth with their pay rise being paused, given everything they have done for everyone over the covid crisis?

[Johnny Mercer]

Let me be clear: this will be the first strategic review to have a specific address to our people. They are our finest asset. They are rewarded not only financially but through the choice of career on offer to them. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to read that when it comes out and I am more than happy to have a conversation with him after that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I have been speaking to our joint military commanders in every region and they have all been clear about the value that these planners and their liaison officers have brought in helping the local authorities to understand what it is that the military could do and in helping us in the MOD to get ahead of that demand so that we can get troops lined up. It is clear that, whatever the lessons learnt about the covid response more generally, one of the biggest lessons for the Ministry of Defence is that those relationships at local level are of huge importance and I hope that we can institutionalise them as we go forward.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]]

May I also put on record my best wishes, and those of my party, to Captain Sir Tom Moore and wish him a speedy recovery?

I have mentioned before that we are extremely grateful for the effort of the armed forces in Scotland, but I must mention the effort that they are making in my constituency at the Castlemilk vaccine centre. It is so good that it even managed to bring the Prime Minister out of Downing Street to my constituency—against all advice, but there we go. What plans does the Minister have to recognise the extraordinary effort and the extraordinary work of those in the armed forces working on the pandemic alongside such brilliant NHS staff up and down the country?

[James Heappey]

I am not sure whether I agree that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom visiting the United Kingdom armed forces hard at work in all parts of the United Kingdom is in any way an inappropriate activity for him to undertake. The great thing about our nation’s armed forces is that they get on with the job at hand and do not seek any recognition at the time. This is their priority; it is our priority. Of course, we have an eye on how we might recognise their contribution when all this is done.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I can tell the Minister that my inbox tells a rather different story. What they want is to be paid properly, to have decent working conditions and employment conditions, and their families to be supported better. But let me ask this. All those NHS and social care workers they are working alongside in Scotland will receive a £500 thank you payment from the Scottish Government. Will he match that for all UK personnel working here and abroad to help fight the pandemic in the upcoming Budget—yes or no?

[James Heappey]

I will, of course, have a look at what that might mean, if, in return, the hon. Gentleman will consider taxing the armed forces less than the Scottish Government currently do.

Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend is very kind to say what he said about the efforts in Kent. We have 360 personnel supporting Kent County Council with lateral flow testing, and he will have seen that considerable number in the problems over Christmas. I will pass on his thanks to Brigadier Prosser, but of course, Brigadier Prosser is the lead on the vaccine. We have a number of other senior military personnel leading in different areas, including test and trace and building NHS capacity; Brigadier Lizzie Faithfull-Davies is the lady in charge of the military response on that. What is amazing is that these military personnel joined to be soldiers and to be Navy, and they do what they are doing today with the same professionalism and enthusiasm as they would do their day job. That is a tribute to the training and the quality of personnel, including, of course, the Gurkha regiment to which my right hon. Friend refers.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. It was only right that he took the time to outline all those within the defence community, whether on the frontline or not, who are working so hard and so professionally to get us through the pandemic. On behalf of my party, I thank each and every one of them for the work that they have done. Because of their professionalism and the way in which they have carried out their job, the Secretary of State comes to the House with a good story to tell today.

I want to press the Secretary of State on two issues, starting with vaccinations. Could he adumbrate exactly where those in defence who are working on covid stand in the queue for receiving vaccinations? Can he give us an idea of how many have been vaccinated so far?

My second question is much broader, and it concerns the issue of resilience, which the Secretary of State knows I am keen on. If we are to do resilience properly, it cannot just be the preserve of the Ministry of Defence; I know he understands that. Can he tell us how the pandemic and the lessons from it as far as resilience is concerned will be reflected in the integrated review? If he can go one further and tell us when that might be published, I will even buy him a dram when we are next allowed to.

[Mr Wallace]

I think I should go for the easy one: the current target date for the IR is the first two weeks of February, so we will go for a half on that. None of our defence personnel has received a vaccination; they are not in priority groups one to four. However, we are, as we speak, working out which key cohorts should be vaccinated in order to preserve and underline the nation’s defence. Obviously, they will get priority, but I expect it to be a small group at first, because protecting priority groups one to four is important.

In terms of resilience, one of the lessons is on reserves. The Scottish Government are empowered to create an NHS reserve if they wish to. That will be one of the lessons that we will draw in England and Wales. We use military reserves, but other Departments may start considering that as well, for those people who want to contribute to the reserve and the resilience of the nation. I am sure that the Scottish Government, under the devolved powers, are entitled to look at that, and I would definitely recommend it.

For the hon. Gentleman’s peace of mind, there are currently three personnel working in airlift—CASEVAC—in the Scottish Ambulance Service, 32 planners in the region to support community testing and vaccination deployment and 25 planners in the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland helping work through those problems. Of course, we stand ready for more. If more is requested through the Scottish Government, we stand ready to provide that assistance, to make sure that the whole of the British Isles and the United Kingdom get through this issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I know the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister in Mr Brown’s Government, who did not have the greatest reputation for financial accuracy. Although we can agree on the spending profile, his interpretation of the rates of inflation and alleged real-term cuts is not something that we recognise. On the “decade of decline”, as he calls it, I thought that before coming to the House I would read the National Audit Office “Major Projects Report 2010”, into the Government in which he was Minister of State, and the spending on defence. That report highlights that in one year up to 2009, the Government overspent by £3 billion. That is where the black hole that amounts to £38 billion came from, so before he throws stones in glass houses about managing defence budgets, he should be very careful.

Perhaps I could be very clear about how we went about getting to this settlement. We started, as I have said repeatedly in the House, with the threat and what we need to meet the threat and to fight tomorrow’s battles, not the last. We then took that request to the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, had a discussion, and it resulted in the record settlement that Members see before the House today.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Surely the review is meant to tell us what the threat is and then the Government respond with the spending, rather than the spending coming before the review is published. All that being said, I suppose we are where we are. I am grateful for one thing that the Secretary of State has done: he has finally listened to our policy of a multi-year defence agreement. May I ask him to go one step further? In other countries where those are used, they involve all political parties. Will he pledge to do so?

[Mr Wallace]

What would be good is a welcome from the Scottish National party that £1.76 billion will be spent with Scottish business, at least, year on year. That is something that the Union manages to deliver for Scotland through the United Kingdom armed forces. This record spending unlocks funding for Type 26, Type 31, Type 32, research vessels and the fleet solid support ships. Where they are to be built is obviously still a matter for decision in some cases, but I can guarantee that, right now, many ships of Type 26 and Type 31 are being built in Scotland. A welcome for that from the SNP would be great, but of course we know we will never hear it.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Someone’s put 50p in them today, Mr Speaker, haven’t they just? Let me ask the Secretary of State this. I have asked him time and again, and he usually just shouts back to me whatever is in his folder; let’s try answering the question. Of the spending announced for Scotland, at what point—he has only a few days of the year left—will the Government finally meet the promise they made six years ago of 12,500 personnel stationed permanently in Scotland? It is currently below 10,000. In all the projects he listed, he did not mention the promise of the frigate factory. [Interruption.] He laughs because he knows it is a promise that is not going to be met between now and 31 December, is it?

[Mr Wallace]

I laughed because, having examined the proposals, the frigate factory would have included the closing of Govan and the investment in Scotstoun. I am not sure, but I remember distinctly that Govan was originally a very proud Labour seat, obviously then represented by the First Minister of Scotland. Having done the review, BAE and, indeed, the MOD and others recognised that the best value for money was to invest in both Govan and Scotstoun, to make sure that we make the frigates and destroyers that the hon. Gentleman wants so much but does not want to use, and to sail them up to Scotstoun to be integrated. That is why we support over 10,000 jobs in Scotland, and we will continue to do so. Where the future basing of our armed forces goes is for the integrated review. All will be revealed to the hon. Gentleman.

Armed Forces: Covid-19 Deployment

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

It may be a while since my right hon. Friend served in the armed forces, but the Scots Guards’ loss is certainly our gain in this place. I thank him for his question. It is not for Defence to tell other Departments how best to deliver their tasking. We are there to support them, and I am proud of the support that we are providing, with liaison officers across Government and other Departments and hundreds of people embedded in local resilience forums, enabling a network of information and intelligence to be gathered and proper support and tasking to be done on the ground.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for tabling the urgent question. Like others, I put on the record the thanks of the Scottish National party to the armed forces for what they have done in this crisis, not least in my home city of Glasgow with the Louisa Jordan hospital.

May I ask the Minister two specific things? Will he outline how many of the 341 requests he mentioned came from Scotland and, perhaps at a later stage, from where? On the vaccination programme that the shadow Secretary of State mentioned, the Minister will recall that, at the start of this crisis, the armed forces being deployed across the country became an ideal opportunity for our adversaries to spread disinformation, which led to much panic buying in supermarkets and subsequent shortages of food and other items. Will he lay before the House—perhaps not today, but at some point—what the country can expect to see from the armed forces in a future vaccination roll-out, so that it does not catch us by surprise and, crucially, so that it cannot be weaponised against our fellow citizens?

[Jeremy Quin]

First, I do not know the exact number of requests. I have actually asked, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the exact numbers, split between Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. I know that we have been very active. In fact I recall, right at the very start of this crisis—when I was sadly unwell with the wretched thing and battling a high temperature and other symptoms—getting a call at four o’clock in the morning on a MACA request for a gentleman to be moved from Orkney down to what is probably the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. That made quite an impression on me. It showed me, first, how lucky I was, all things considered—that gentleman was seriously ill; and secondly, how wonderful it is that we have professional armed forces, able at the drop of a hat to go and deliver and collect and look after people, wherever they are in our United Kingdom. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on the specific point regarding the number of MACA requests coming from Scotland. We are delighted to work with the Scottish Government.

On the roll-out of the vaccines, I will not speculate on what role there might be for the Ministry of Defence. We clearly work with other Government Departments, giving logistical and planning support. We are there to help and to provide assistance, but we are still at the very early stages on the vaccine, as the Prime Minister was clear yesterday, so it would be inappropriate to speculate at this stage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I think the right hon. Gentleman delivered the speech for a potential future statement. No one has said yet that the integrated review will be delayed or curtailed. What we are saying is that we are studying the implications of the one-year spending review on that. Once we have worked through those implications, he is of course welcome to make his points across the Dispatch Box. I know that he is keen to make those points, but I respectfully suggest that he waits until we have thought through the implications. Then we can have that discussion in Parliament.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Ahead of Remembrance Sunday at the end of the week, we wish well all of those organising events in a different fashion. The day does not lose its meaning at all.

On the integrated review, I am sure that the Secretary of State is more frustrated than most. As an avid reader of National Audit Office reports, he will know that pushing spending to the right will ultimately leave him with less money to spend. A multi-year settlement, as long advocated by SNP Members, would allow future-proofed planning. Can he tell us what the consequences of the postponement are for the future nuclear warheads system and, in particular, the W93?

[Mr Wallace]

As I said to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), the first thing is to wait until we have worked through the consequences of the one-year spending announcement by the Treasury. I, or indeed the Prime Minister, will then be happy to come and update the House about what that means for the integrated review and the consequences that follow.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Unfortunately for the Secretary of State, we can all see where this is going, as he knows as well as we do. In April, he wrote to members of Congress stating that

“support to the W93 program in this budget cycle is critical to the success of our replacement warhead programme and to the long-term viability of the UK’s nuclear deterrent.”

We read in the press about his Department’s alarm that a victory for the Democratic nominee in tomorrow’s election could stymie congressional and US support for that programme. As his Treasury and UK alliances have let him down, does he agree with Tom McTague’s assessment in The Atlantic today that

“if the election of one president or another is an existential challenge, then perhaps the issue is Britain’s strategy itself”?

[Mr Wallace]

I do not agree at all, and I think the hon. Gentleman may be slightly confused because, whether it is one year or multi-year, it does not mean to say that the defence budget goes to zero. We will still have a £41 billion budget—one of the biggest budgets in Europe—which will allow us to continue with not only running the armed forces but investing in them. Of course, the challenge that we have always been open about is the black hole in the overall finances, which we will have to take steps to meet. I am sorry to disappoint some of his anti-nuclear colleagues, but that does not mean the end of the nuclear deterrent or the submarines. The budget will not resort to zero after the one year. We should first work through what one year will mean, versus multi-year. It is not the first one-year funding settlement, and it is not the first defence review that is trying to fix underfunding and over-ambition. I distinctly remember serving in the armed forces when Labour’s ones did exactly the same.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am now going to progress.

The second element of the first part of the Bill ensures that, when making a decision, the prosecutor must give particular weight to certain matters, such as the adverse impact of operations on our personnel and the public interest in finality where there has been a previous investigation and there is no compelling new evidence. If it is deemed that the case should proceed to trial, the third threshold requires consent before a prosecution can proceed. In England and Wales, for example, that will be from the Attorney General. In those cases, the Attorney General will be acting independently of Government, as guardian of the public interest.

Some groups such as Liberty have suggested that this is political interference. It is nothing of the sort. Given that the Attorney General already has decisions over prosecutions in statute ranging from the Auctions (Bidding Agreements) Act 1927 to the Theatres Act 1968, it is neither uncommon nor controversial.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Wallace]

If the hon. Gentleman is going to tell us about the Advocate General for Scotland—[Interruption]—or rather, the Lord Advocate in Scotland, who also sits in the Scottish Cabinet—and his role in directing prosecutions, I will be interested to hear.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Of course, the Advocate General for Scotland resigned just last week. I believe it is the case that the Department consulted the Lord Advocate in the Scottish Government. It is normally the case that the Government would not publish the advice of its own lawyers, but the Lord Advocate in Scotland is not a UK Government official; he is a Scottish Government official. Will the Secretary of State publish the opinion that the Ministry of Defence received from Scotland’s Lord Advocate?

[Mr Wallace]

We are not going to publish his opinion or anybody else’s.

We do not publish the opinion of our Attorney General. It is a long-held policy of most Governments not to publish the legal advice they receive, except in exceptional circumstances.

Part 2 of the Bill makes changes to the time limits for bringing claims in tort for personal injury or death and claims for Human Rights Act 1998 violations that occur in the context of overseas military operations. Clauses 8 to 10 introduce schedules 2, 3 and 4. Taken together, these provisions introduce new factors that the courts in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland must consider when deciding whether a claim for personal injury or death can be allowed beyond the normal limit of three years. The provisions also introduce an absolute maximum time limit of six years for such claims. These new factors ensure that operational context is properly taken into account, and they weigh up the likely impact of giving evidence on the mental health of the service personnel or veterans involved.

Clause 11 amends the Human Rights Act. This provision largely mirrors the changes that are being made for tort-based claims. It will change the rules governing the court’s discretion to extend the one-year time limit for bringing claims under the 1998 Act and will introduce an absolute maximum time limit of six years for human rights claims in relation to overseas operations. Again, critics of the Bill are trying to mislead veterans with tales that this somehow discriminates against our armed forces.

Let us put this six-year backstop into perspective. Currently, for claims in tort, where personnel may sue for personal injury in England, there is already a time limit. Mostly, that limit is three years from the date of the incident or knowledge of it. In other words, if a former soldier is diagnosed with PTSD 20 years after his service, the time limit starts then, not when the operation took place. The existence of time limits is commonplace and was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Stubbings v. the UK. The UK Human Rights Act itself has a 12-month time limit for claims from the event happening but does allow for further judicial discretion, and the armed forces compensation scheme has a seven-year time limit.

Finally, clause 12 will further amend the Human Rights Act to impose a duty to consider derogating from—that is, suspending our obligations under—the European convention on human rights in relation to significant military overseas operations. This measure does not require derogation to take place, but it does require future Governments to make a conscious decision on whether derogation should be sought in the light of the circumstances at the time. We want in future the ability, if necessary, to allow soldiers to focus on the danger and job in hand when on operations, not on whether they will have a lawsuit slapped on them when they get home.

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[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I, like others, pay tribute to the armed forces, not least for the work they have done during the coronavirus crisis, particularly in erecting the extraordinary construction of the NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital in my own home city of Glasgow. I know they have done much in Members’ constituencies all across the UK, and I am sure we will expect more of them in the times to come.

I acknowledge at the outset of my remarks—this will probably be the only bit that pleases Government Ministers and Conservative Members—the sincerity with which Ministers have approached this, in that they recognise the problem and sincerely wish to fix it. Indeed, the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) was a jolly advocate of getting this done way before he became a Minister, and I think I am right in saying that the Secretary of State himself was raising this when he was a Member of the Scottish Parliament in the first Parliament of 1999. I acknowledge their long-standing desire to fix these issues, but I am afraid I do not believe that this Bill does it.

Those who risk their lives for their country do so in some of the most unimaginable circumstances. There are gallant Members here who have gone through that. I certainly have not. Far from home, they are often surrounded by danger at the behest of this Parliament, and they have to make split-second decisions under circumstances that, as I say, I cannot imagine. Sometimes those decisions are wrong, and when they are wrong, there needs to be a means by which that can be righted and justice can be done. Sometimes many years later these incidents rear their heads in the form of legal claims that force claimants and former service personnel to relive some of those dark days in a search for answers, but no one, least of all service personnel and veterans of the armed forces, deserves to be accused of a crime that they did not commit, and far less to be harassed by investigation after investigation. As the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee and former Chairman of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has said, the Bill does not achieve that.

The Secretary of State has mentioned Phil Shiner, and other firms have also sought to cash in on this kind of behaviour. I do not deny that they have done so, and they are to be deprecated for it. Indeed, I believe that they are deprecated on all sides of the House. However, this legislation is not the way to deal with this. It is using the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut. I accept that the nut is deeply problematic, but I have to say that this looks like a Bill designed more to protect the Government, and in particular the Ministry of Defence, rather than anyone who dons a uniform. Indeed, it was the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, who we will hear from at the end of the debate, who said that

“one of the biggest problems…was the military’s inability to investigate itself properly and the standard of those investigations…If those investigations were done properly and self-regulation had occurred, we probably wouldn’t be here today”.

The Bill makes no provision whatsoever for an independent investigative body or for reporting accountability mechanisms of the kind that would help to address the historical claims that I believe we all want to address. We are asked to hope by the Government, and to trust and believe that a real solution will come later, after we vote to undermine international law and the rules that keep us safe. That is a promise that seems to be being made with increasing regularity from the Government Benches. That is why I believe that this Bill is bad, not just for our rules and laws but for the armed forces as well.

If we can agree with the Minister for Veterans, as I do, that the investigations process in the Ministry of Defence is flawed and needs fixing, let us bring forward a Bill to do that. If that does not require legislation, let us bring forward those proposals. Let us have that discussion first. Passing the Bill in this form or a form close to it would be to put the cart before the horse. If the Government truly want to protect the UK armed forces from legacy allegations of war crimes, they must create mechanisms for allegations, both contemporaneous and historical, to be properly addressed by independent investigators. I am horrified, as I am sure other legal minds in this place, the other place and outside Parliament will be, at the extraordinary powers that the Bill invests in the Attorney General, who is not an independent Law Officer of the Government, but a political appointment and part of the Government.

We believe that the ways that I have just outlined are the ways to ensure that we can deal with this properly, but instead, the Government have offered a Bill today that does not help the victims of these cases—by which I mean service personnel, veterans and their families—who feel that the courts are their only recourse to justice. I would argue, as do other Members, that this exposes UK forces more to the International Criminal Court. And I can tell the House what will happen then: Tory Back Bencher after Tory Back Bencher will be on their feet complaining about foreign judges intervening in UK justice. How long would it then be before someone made it mainstream within the Conservative party that the United Kingdom should withdraw from the ICC? I can see the start of a very slippery slope indeed.

[Mr Carmichael]

Is it not part of the problem that, where suspicion exists, there requires to be an investigation, and that if that investigation produces evidence, there should be a prosecution? By putting barriers in the way of prosecution, we do no favours to those who are accused of criminal acts in the first place, because no line is ever drawn underneath it for them.

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[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The right hon. Gentleman is correct, so I do not need to expand on that. I am conscious of your points about time, Madam Deputy Speaker, but he is correct in what he says.

I want to go through some of the senior military, legal and political opinion that has come out against the Bill. I can accept that Conservative Members, probably those on the Front Bench, think that the Opposition—if not the entirety of it, my party—are just Guardian-reading, lentil-munching sandal wearers, but that can hardly be laid at the feet of Nicholas Mercer, can it? Nicholas Mercer, the former command legal adviser during the Iraq war, has pointed out that this Bill

“undermines international humanitarian law while shielding the government”.

The Bill serves one body, and that body is the Ministry of Defence.

I can also point to some other opinion against the Bill—indeed, one of the Secretary of State’s predecessors, Sir Malcolm Rifkind. The Secretary of State has managed to unite Sir Malcolm Rifkind with the Scottish National party, and he was a leading nat-basher-in-chief back in his day. He has said that the Bill risks

“undermining the UK’s position as a champion of the rule of law”.

That might be fashionable on Government Benches these days, but it is something that we in the Scottish National party will not stand for.

You could also quote the former Attorney General, Dominic Grieve. I hear the Government Front Bench often praying in aid the Attorney General for Northern Ireland. For a Bill that does not concern itself with Northern Ireland, you seem awfully keen on the Northern Irish Attorney General. As the shadow Secretary of State mentioned, we were told by the Secretary of State in a letter that he sent to all Members of the House that the Bill will be equivalent to what is brought forward in Northern Ireland. Well, good luck with that one!

We can also quote Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, although I understand he has taken some of what he said back. Again, he is hardly a lentil-munching leftie. He said:

“There can be no exceptions to our laws, and no attempts to bend them. Those who break them should be judged in court.”

He also stated:

“These proposals appear to have been dreamt up by those who have seen too little of the world to understand why the rules of war matter. If we start down the slippery slope of arguing that rules apply to others, but not to ourselves, it is we who will suffer in the end.”

[Tom Tugendhat]

To make a small point of clarification, Field Marshal the Lord Guthrie has rethought his words, having spoken to the Chief of the General Staff.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I do not believe that anything I read out is what he has withdrawn, however. If I am wrong on that, I am happy to be corrected. I thought I was going to be told that he was indeed a lentil-munching Guardian reader, but clearly not.

To come to how the Government are approaching this, I have listened to many of the sedentary chunterings that have come from the Treasury Bench this afternoon, and I had a call with the Minister for Veterans yesterday—he told me that he was not the “king of good ideas”, but I did not need to be told that—but all I have seen is arrogance. Any objection, whether adumbrated by people outside or inside the House—including people on his own side, by the way—is all met with, “Didn’t read the Bill”, “Doesn’t understand it”, “This is embarrassing”, or “It’s this way or no way.” I am afraid that unless we can amend the Bill within an inch of its life, beyond any recognition of what appears before Members this afternoon, there is no way that my party can support the Bill in this form.

I will say this, however: if the Minister wants to get the issue solved—which I believe we both do, as I said at the start—

[Johnny Mercer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I will once I have completed my peroration. Scrap the Bill and let us have a discussion about the way in which the Ministry of Defence investigates these things internally. I am more than happy to engage in that discussion with the Minister and with the Secretary of State, but to ask us to vote for a Bill so roundly condemned by senior legal, military and political opinion is something that we will not contemplate.

[Mr Wallace]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes reasoned points and a good speech. First, he has not mentioned it yet, but he will be aware that there was something called the Lyons review, which was the service justice review that has reviewed and continues to review. We are in the middle of implementing some of its recommendations on improving on exactly the points he makes about service justice.

Secondly, before the hon. Gentleman finishes his speech, I ask him within what parameters we should work when trying to come to a consensus with the Scottish National party. For example, does he except that in cases of civil law there is a need for tort limitations? Does he accept the statute of limitations on civil pursuit—that many of those cases should have a time limit? Does he also accept the line in the relevant article of the European convention on human rights that says people are entitled to

“a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time”?

If he accepts both those parameters, perhaps we can talk.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I have not disputed any of those things. I am willing to have that conversation, but the Secretary of State has introduced a Bill that is so egregious he makes it impossible for me to support it. Look, he has his majority so he will get it through in whatever form he wants, but if he wants to have, as we often do in defence discussions in this Parliament, a degree of consensus that most people outside this place probably do not think exists, it cannot come on the back of a Bill like this one. I understand that the review he mentioned at the start of his intervention is taking place; why not pause the Bill and let that review report first? Let Parliament debate it and then see what we can fix.

[Johnny Mercer]

I have a lot of time for the hon. Gentleman and recognise his allegations of how I have ridiculed some of the approaches. The reality is that we on the Government Benches have to deal in what is actually in the Bill and the reality of operations. We have a duty to these people. We have engaged both the hon. Gentleman and the shadow Secretary of State in trying to improve the Bill, and not once have you come forward with something with which I can improve the Bill. The Bill is moderate, fair and down the middle. If you are on the wrong side in the Lobbies tonight, you are clearly on the wrong side of history.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am not entering into the debate, but I shall merely say that all day today Members on both sides of the House have been using the word “you”. They have been calling the Prime Minister you and they are calling Members on each side of the House you. In this Chamber, you means the occupant of the Chair. It is really important, in order to keep the right sort of distance in an argument of this kind, that we use the phrase “the hon. Gentleman” or “the hon. Lady”, or something along those lines. Mr McDonald, you have not committed this sin.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

That is because I know what I am doing, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you well know.

Let me say this to the Minister for Defence People and Veterans. We always try to find the maximum consensus, but I rather suspect that we just cannot agree on this Bill. He is not willing to change it to the degree I would like to see it changed, which in essence would mean scrapping it and letting the review come forward. When we table amendments in Committee, it will be interesting to see what they say; I am sure the Minister will be interested to read them, and it will be interesting to see how the Government approach them. As I say, we all know what is going to happen: the Government have a huge majority and are not going to accept anything that they feel they do not have to. We do not agree with them that the Bill is moderate at all, which is why we will vote against its Second Reading tonight.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The Minister for Defence People and Veterans is keen that we look at the Bill itself. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill creates a presumption against prosecution for a class of defendants, placing one group above the other in the eyes of the law? Does he agree that that is unprecedented in our domestic legal systems, whether we speak of England and Wales or the separate and independent jurisdiction in Scotland? That is unprecedented and that is what is objectionable about the Bill: it does away with the idea of equality before the criminal law, and that is wrong.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely correct in saying that. I would go further and say that actually, in terms of the whole scope of the Bill and how it protects the Ministry of Defence from claims coming from members of the armed forces themselves, as brilliantly illustrated by the shadow Secretary of State in his speech earlier, it is not welcomed by those people who need protection. We all agree that they need protection, but we cannot agree with the Government that this Bill is the way to do it.

The context is this: this Parliament has no power to prevent the Government from entering a discretionary conflict. There is no war powers Act. When Tony Blair took the country to war—a war that, in an interesting contribution earlier, the Defence Secretary said he now accepts was illegal, but which his party supported at the time—he at least came to this Parliament and held a vote. When the airstrikes in Syria took place in Easter 2018 under the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), that was done away with; that discretion was used without any parliamentary consent.

On the issue of special forces oversight or lack thereof, we stand out as unusual, even by comparison with a country such as the United States with zero oversight of special forces operations. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said earlier, this Bill creates two levels of playing field for people in this country. This is all unwelcome and highly unusual. There is a reason that no other country has a version of this Bill on its statute book or before its national legislature. Members of the armed forces are rightly expected to perform to a high standard and members of the armed forces are right to expect a high standard of us in this House, but for the reasons I have outlined we will vote against this legislation tonight. Members of the armed forces are entitled to a better standard than this.

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[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I have been in the House for nearly 20 years, and I have always prided myself on being a strong advocate for defence and the support of our servicemen and women, both from the Back Benches and as a Minister. I am also no friend of unscrupulous lawyers. Older Members of the House will remember my campaign of the early 2000s against unscrupulous lawyers who defrauded my constituents who were claiming miners’ compensation. That led to the instigation of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which took the disciplining of lawyers away from the Law Society. I am also, though, a strong supporter of the legal system and of the military justice system. I have served on the last three armed forces Bills as either a Minister or a Back Bencher, and I think I understand the system well and respect it.

Unfortunately, though, this Bill does not pass the Ronseal test: it does not say what it does on the tin. It excludes completely the arguments, with which I have a lot of sympathy, about prosecutions of those in Northern Ireland. The other issue is the need for the Bill. Its promoters give the impression that there is an army of vexatious lawyers out there who are pursuing veterans. I asked, in a parliamentary question, for numbers. I was told that they were not kept by the Department centrally. The explanatory notes say that there were 900 cases for Afghanistan and Iraq between 2003 and 2009; the impact assessment says the number is 1,000, but what they do not explain is the nature of those cases. How many were brought by vexatious lawyers? How many were compensation cases rightly brought by members of the armed forces or their families?

I accept the issues around the case of Phil Shiner. That individual was disgraceful, but I have to say that the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which was put in place by the last Labour Government, sorted that problem out. On the other main thing that has been raised today, I was a Minister in the Department at the time, and the problem was the way in which cases were investigated. The Bill will not address that.

The other point that I would like to address is my fear that the presumption, as outlined in the Bill at the moment, that prosecutions will not go forward outside a certain timescale will lead to members of our armed forces going before the International Criminal Court. That cannot be acceptable. If we had that presumption against prosecution, the court would perhaps conclude that the UK was either unwilling or unable to initiate a prosecution. I do not want to see that, and I do not think the Minister does either, but it is an unintended consequence of the Bill and it has to be changed.

I also have problems with clause 3, which says that prosecutors should take into account “exceptional demands and stresses” in cases after five years. If it is good enough after five years, why not before? There is no need for the clause, because that is already taken into account. The Judge Advocate General, in his letter to the Defence Secretary, outlined the case of Marine A, where evidence of unique circumstances taken at the first court martial and then at the appeal meant that the sentence was reduced to manslaughter.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Does the right hon. Member not agree that it diminishes the Government’s standing when they come to the House and cast to one side all these concerns from experts such as those he mentions, when there probably is a reasonable Bill that the House could gather around?

[Mr Jones]

I think there is, but I also say that people should talk to those in the service justice system, because they do this every day of the week. They are an independent judiciary—that is recognised internationally. They do a job in ensuring that people get justice and I think that this Bill will complicate that. One of my fears is that this will undermine the military justice system, of which I am a passionate supporter. I know that some people want to do away with it, but I certainly do not. I also agree with the points that have been raised by the Royal British Legion and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) concerning conditions around the ability of veterans to make compensation claims later.

I will not vote against the Bill tonight, because I think it can be improved. However, I will also not fall into the political trap that has been set, where it will be said that if someone is against the Bill or criticises it in any way, they favour ambulance-chasing lawyers over our armed forces. I am sorry but I take great exception to that, and I am in good company, along with a lot of other people, such as Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, Nick Parker, whom I have huge respect for—I worked with him in the Ministry of Defence—and the Judge Advocate General.

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[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to be called so early in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I might be new to this place, but I spent three decades in uniform. I have worked with many veterans charities across the UK, not least in my previous role as commander of the Army engagement group at Sandhurst and in my Bracknell constituency where our armed forces champions are working wonders.

The Bill needs to be considered for what it is, not for what it is not. Given that it is groundbreaking, it needs to start somewhere and is therefore bound to attract negative interest. For those who have not noticed, the architect of the Bill is a veteran. I cannot think of a single Minister who has invested so much of himself against such a tough backdrop and I commend the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), for everything he has done this far. He has fulfilled his promise, to date, to our veterans and it is incumbent on us in this place to be objective, because we will not be forgiven if we fail. I do not believe that anybody can be a supporter of our armed forces and vote against the Bill.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I will not have that. The armed forces look to this place to get this right—the hon. Gentleman is correct on that—but they expect and deserve a better standard than the comment he has just made. I know he is new, but I like him and I just ask him to withdraw it. Please withdraw it.

[James Sunderland]

I am a great fan of the Bill and the Bill is right. We need to put it through.

At its simplest level, the imposition of a presumption in law against prosecution after five years will provide greater certainty for our service personnel. Since 2002, the MOD has faced 1,400 judicial review claims and over 2,000 civil claims relating to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Many are valid, but about 3,400 allegations of unlawful killings have also been received by the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, of which at least 70% have been filtered out as being spurious. Members will also be aware of the al-Sweady inquiry, which cost the taxpayer £31 million and was proven to be based on

“deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility”.

That was just the tip of the iceberg, and it is right that public interest lawyers, such as Phil Shiner, should have been struck off. But that is nothing compared to the anguish of our veterans, many of whom are innocent.

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[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson). As he said, I too am honoured to sit on the Defence Committee. We have a very cohesive Committee, which is doing some fascinating work on behalf of our armed services.

May I point out to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) that once a commanding officer, always a commanding officer—of course I refer to the mention of the hairstyle of the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer). I thank the Minister while he is sitting on the Front Bench, and the Secretary of State, for the huge amount of work that they have both done to get the Bill before the House. I would like to show my appreciation for all the armed service personnel in another country, and to those in South Dorset in camps such as Bovington and Lulworth, the headquarters of the armoured force nowadays. There are many thousands of troops and their families who serve with great distinction and honour, in Dorset and around the world, and we owe them a huge debt.

It is those of us in this House who send troops to war—no one else; we do. We sit here on these green Benches, or at home in our comfortable armchairs, armed with a gin and tonic perhaps, watching the men and women we sent fight for their lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Can we possibly, with few exceptions—honourable exceptions—really understand what they have gone through and are going through? I do not think we possibly can.

The law had until recently covered warfare very well. Things like torture and sexual assaults and so on are already covered by international law, under which our troops serve. Unfortunately, other laws have crept into military law and are being exploited, as we have heard, in some cases by unscrupulous lawyers, and even scrupulous lawyers who genuinely feel that they have a legal duty to protect their clients’ claims and investigate them.

The Bill, we have heard, gives immunity to those who commit crimes—or, some have said, amnesties. Hon. Members may remember the case of Marine A, Alexander Blackman; I sought his permission to mention his name today. I was honoured and privileged to form part of a small team that fought for him for three years to get his conviction for murder reduced to manslaughter. In that case, if hon. Members remember, he shot a member of the Taliban while serving in Afghanistan. He was convicted of murder and sent to jail for 10 years. Under a very able QC and his team, we took the case to the Appeal Court, where it was reduced to manslaughter with diminished responsibility.

What I find encouraging in the Bill is that—if I may read the notes that I was helpfully given by the Minister—it will require prosecutors, when deciding whether to prosecute, to take into account the unique circumstances of “overseas operations” and the “adverse effects” that those can have on personnel.

In the Appeal Court, five of the top judges in the land listened to the case that I have mentioned and decided that it was not murder. So, having served four years of his life, and having served 16 years with great distinction and honour for Queen and country and for us, Mr Blackman was released.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

rose—

[Richard Drax]

I will not give way, because 70 Members wish to speak, and the hon. Gentleman has had plenty of time to say his bit.

The point I am trying to make is that this man did not get away with it. He was convicted for four years of his life. He paid for a terrible mistake in the heat of battle after a long tour. When the circumstances were investigated by the lawyers at the Appeal Court and the experiences that he and others had been through came out, and the psychiatrists had their say, it was discovered that this man had been pushed to a point that none of us in this place can understand.

Next time—and there sadly will be another time—we send our men and women into harm’s way, we must remember what we are sending them to. This Bill, which I totally support, is being introduced to protect them from new aspects of law that our forebears in world war two and other battles did not have to cope with. I shall be voting with the Government tonight. I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for bringing this Bill to the House, and I look forward to the Northern Ireland Bill coming to the House before Christmas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I think that I misheard. I thought the shadow Secretary of State was talking about the position that we inherited in 2010, which was underfunded and over-ambitious—indeed, there was an equipment hole so big that many of the tanks could be driven through it. He could also point out that our men and women in the armed forces have been ready: they have delivered an excellent covid response and have not been found wanting in any way. That is partly because of the investment we have put into them, but also because of expert leadership through the officers and the civil servants in the Department and across the Government.

I assure the shadow Secretary of State that the best way to avoid the pitfalls of the past is to make sure that our ambition is matched by our pockets and what we put into the review. That is fundamentally the best thing we can do for all our forces. I would be delighted to hear the Labour party’s ambition on foreign policy and security; the previous Labour party leadership’s ambition for foreign policy was surrender.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I echo the comments of the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), about the armed forces and the job they are doing in the current crisis.

We in Scotland know all about over-ambition and under-delivery when it comes to the Ministry of Defence, because six years ago we were promised a frigate factory, but that promise was broken, and we were promised 12,500 regular troops in Scotland, but the number has never even come close to hitting 10,000. Is it not time, if we are to avoid this cycle of over-promising and under-delivery, to move towards multi-year defence agreements that bring together the Secretary of State’s Department, the Treasury and parties in this House to prevent the £13 billion equipment-plan black hole from growing ever further?

[Mr Wallace]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. Of course, he may have missed the Type 31 frigate and the Type 26 ships that are being made in Scotland. He may have missed Faslane, although I know they do not want to talk about that in the Scottish National party. He may have missed the recent basing of the P-8s in Kinloss. There will be more investment and more units placed in Scotland, because we believe that the United Kingdom is the best union in this country to deliver security for all its citizens. We do not believe in separation; we do not believe in putting borders between our two countries; and we do not believe in trying to kid-on people in Scotland that they will get something for nothing with a Scottish navy or Scottish armed forces. We are stronger when we are together—that is the United Kingdom and that is what will continue to invest in. There are plenty of troops and plenty of navy in Scotland supporting the security of us all.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The Government promised 12,500 and the Secretary of State has not once come close to delivering 10,000. He promised a frigate factory and his Department has never come close to delivering it. He must know the difference between the frigate itself and the frigate factory promised under the Conservative Government at the time.

Let us look at Denmark, a country that does use multi-year defence agreements. It does not have a £13.5 billion black hole in its equipment plan; it trebled its defence spending a little over one year ago. Why does the Secretary of State not answer the question? We can take the heat out of these exchanges if he takes our advice and moves to multi-year defence agreements. Will we see that progress, as we were repeatedly told we would, when the integrated review is published next month?

[Mr Wallace]

We are going to have a multi-year integrated review that sets the course for the next few years so that we can settle down and face tomorrow’s threat, not yesterday’s threat. Scottish National party Members always resort to “Let’s save one regiment or the other” rather than discussing what the threat could be to Scotland and how they are going to deal with it. Fundamentally, all these reviews are supposed to happen not annually but over a number of years. The hon. Member will know that the Treasury has already talked about a four-year spending settlement in the next comprehensive spending review for capital and a three-year settlement for revenue, so it is based on multiple years. Instead of arguing about the difference between a frigate factory and a systems integrator, supplier, subcontractor or supply chain supporter, it would be nice if he would recognise that in Scotstoun and Govan, and in Glenrothes and Fife alone, there are thousands of jobs linked to defence, many of which would not exist if Scotland took a separatist path and abandoned the defence industry and the security of these isles.