Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Mark Francois

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

We are providing up to 700 beds for the treatment of Ebola-infected patients and, critically, a specialist 12-bed facility to treat health care workers, should any unfortunately become infected. That second element is a magnet, because we must recruit more health care workers to go to Sierra Leone to help fight the disease. I am extremely proud of what our military personnel are doing, and the whole country and the House can be proud of them, too.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Last year, the cost that the RAF incurred in supporting the operation in Mali was picked up by an urgent operational requirement, yet an answer last week showed that the cost to RFA Argus had been met by the Department for International Development. Why the difference?

[Mr Francois]

DFID is leading on this operation. It has a clear lead, working with international partners. We in the MOD are supporting the DFID strategy. It is DFID’s lead, and it is paying for this.

Defence and Cyber-security

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Mark Francois

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend has raised this issue with me before. He asks a specific question about two specific squadrons. I believe that what he asks is the case, but I will write to him to confirm it. The House knows that he is the world’s greatest living expert on this matter, and I do not want to be the man to give him a wrong steer.

The cyber reserve offers individuals the opportunity to be part of the proud history and ethos of our reserves while working in a cutting-edge, technological field. The hon. Member for Bridgend asked about the effect on reservists if they travel to other countries. I will look into the good point she raised, and will return to her on that.

Cyber crosses national boundaries, a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) made clearly, and so too must our view of this new domain. It is, therefore, essential that we work with our allies to ensure that we are not only able to operate with one another, but are aware of common threats. We are already working closely on cyber with our long-standing international partners, particularly through a defence cyber-contact group that includes the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and ourselves—the traditional “Five Eyes” partners.

[Thomas Docherty]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Francois]

I will give way briefly because I am conscious of time.

[Thomas Docherty]

Before the Minister moves away from personnel, what lessons are being learned about recruiting regulars and reservists from the IT world? He seemed to skip over that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Mark Francois

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

In the last Session of Parliament I introduced a private Member’s Bill which would have made attacks on members of the armed services a hate crime. In the light of tragic recent events, will the Minister meet me urgently to discuss how that issue can now be taken forward?

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman will remember that when we had what I thought was a very well-conducted and good-humoured debate on that serious subject, I undertook to him that we would keep this under review and would have more to say in the armed forces covenant report 2013. That remains the Department’s position, but perhaps we can have a discussion after questions today so I can update him if he needs further information.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Mark Francois

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Next year HMS Illustrious will be taken out of service. The Minister will know just how fond memories are of the work that was done at Rosyth dockyard. Will he meet me to discuss how we can best commemorate her withdrawal?

[Mr Francois]

I hope that we can do better than to commemorate the withdrawal of HMS Illustrious and that it will be possible to come up with a scheme to save her for the nation. She is representative of a historic class of aircraft carrier, and we need, one way or another, to preserve her for generations to come.

Armed Forces (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Mark Francois

Friday 1st February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words earlier and also for his reference to the book, which was written by the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who is sitting on the Front Bench next to me. I am delighted to reassure the hon. Gentleman that I was present at my hon. Friend’s book launch and purchased a copy of the book from my own perhaps not quite so deep pockets. It is a very good read.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful for that, and I am reassured that the right hon. Gentleman used his own money to purchase the book and did not borrow the £15 from his ministerial colleague.

As the book sets out, there have been some ridiculous examples, such as the one, when somebody in their uniform who had been at a Remembrance day service was refused service by Harrods. The Under-Secretary subsequently visited the store after a bit of a campaign in which he had been involved, and thankfully Harrods has changed its policy. I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, that in your own constituency and others you are aware of incidents where, regrettably, members of the armed forces have been refused service on rare occasions.

The report contains allegations that banks and building societies have turned down mortgage applications from armed forces personnel, and they have been unable to get mobile phones. I am conscious of hon. Members’ comments on previous occasions about narrowly defining Bills, so on this occasion I have not put such incidents into the Bill, but when the Minister responds I hope he will consider how widespread the problem is. The Ministry of Defence may wish to use a report mechanism to provide greater clarity on it.

I want to focus on the even more abhorrent incidents, which, thankfully, are relatively rare, but do occur, of verbal and physical abuse of members of our armed forces. No one present today and no one watching our proceedings would not condemn unequivocally the actions of a mindless tiny minority who when, for example, the coffins returned from theatre felt the need to hurl abuse and intimidate those who had gathered to pay their respects. I know that the Minister takes that very seriously.

The report also contains accounts of an RAF recruiter who reported that she had regularly faced verbal abuse. People had apparently called her a baby killer, which I am sure the House would find utterly despicable. It is such incidents that the Bill seeks to address, as well as physical assaults. I am clear, as I am sure is the House, that we are not talking about where soldiers, sailors or RAF personnel get into a fight as any other person might, but where they have been subject to an assault because of the fact that they are either in or out of uniform.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I must confess that in preparing for this debate I had not looked at that question. My instinctive answer is that they would not be, because the Bill relates mainly to UK service personnel.

[Thomas Docherty]

indicated assent.

[Mr Francois]

I see that the hon. Gentleman is nodding, so I hope I have that right.

Further on in section 343B, subsection (4) gives the meaning of the term “relevant family member”, but effectively allows the Secretary of State to interpret it as best fits the context. The Bill, however, replaces that discretion, for this purpose, by specifying that it should cover “any relative”. If I have understood the hon. Gentleman’s intentions correctly—I hope I have—he wishes the new provision to cover a large group of people, including all former members of the armed forces and all relatives of current or former service personnel. Offences against them would be treated more seriously, if motivated by hostility to service people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

Perhaps I can assist the Minister. He will be aware, from the examples cited, that the types of occasions concerned are those such as remembrance services and funerals. That is why the Bill is so framed. He was right to highlight it, but there have been regrettable incidents at such occasions.

[Mr Francois]

Again, I can follow the hon. Gentleman’s thinking, but as I will explain it could present practical difficulties, if the Bill was passed, including for the courts. If he will allow me, I shall explain—clearly, I hope—why they might be.

We need to be clear about what the Bill will not do. Over the years, there have been reports of incidents in which hostility has been directed against service personnel because of their membership of the armed forces. Some of the actions of anti-war demonstrators, for example, fall into this category and have been widely and rightly condemned. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a protest at the homecoming parade of 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment. As that was my old regiment, I feel that particularly strongly, as he can imagine.

Those incidents should not be confused, however, with situations such as a refusal to admit members of the armed forces to a hotel or bar. These, too, have led to widespread public indignation, but it is important to recognise that the Bill does not address those situations, because they generally do not involve a criminal offence.

[Thomas Docherty]

indicated assent.

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman nods in assent.

I recognise what the hon. Gentleman is trying to do, and I have no difficulty in principle with the signal he wants Parliament to send—that offences motivated by hostility to the armed forces are serious offences—but I have considerable practical difficulty with how he proposes to send that signal. In effect, I believe that the law of unintended consequences would apply, and I will explain why in a moment.

As a general rule, before we go down the route of new legislation, we must consider whether there is a need for it. The answer in this case is, on balance, no. The courts already have a wide power in sentencing to take into account factors that make conduct more serious. Criminal acts based on an irrational hostility to a person because he or she is in the armed forces will, if anything, often lead to a higher sentence anyway.

[Mr Francois]

As I said, I can understand the signal that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife is trying to send, but if we are talking about changing the law of the land, we need to look at the practical effect, including on the courts. I am trying to walk the House through what might be the practical effect in the courtroom. If the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) will bear with me, I shall attempt to develop that point.

I am aware of no evidence of courts finding that they have insufficient powers to give an appropriate sentence to an offender in this regard. I am not aware that we have received representations from the courts asking us to amend the law in this way.

In contrast, converting the flexibility that the courts currently exercise into a mandatory requirement—which is what the Bill says—would present them with practical difficulties. For example, in demonstrating to a court that the aggravating factor was present and should apply, the prosecution would need to show that the hostility was present. Perhaps that would be relatively straightforward in the case of a soldier in uniform, but the Bill as drafted extends the same protection to those not in uniform, which might be more difficult to prove. As we have seen, this provision also includes the families of service personnel and our veteran community—all 4.6 million of them, or about one in 10 of the adult population of this country.

Under the Bill as drafted, the court would presumably have to decide whether the offender was aware of that fact and whether it motivated the effect. The court might need to establish whether a victim was a relative—“any relative”—of a member of the armed forces. How are the courts to deal with a situation where an offence is motivated by excessive rivalry between different sections of the armed forces or, perhaps, a domestic dispute? A mandatory requirement for a higher sentence reduces the courts’ ability to take a sensible, common-sense approach to what is really going on in the circumstances they are examining.

[Thomas Docherty]

I regret that the Minister and I are slightly diverging in our perspectives. My concern is that some of these arguments could well have been used by civil servants who were sceptical about the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 dealing with relatives and how someone knows that someone else is gay. The Minister is a wise individual with a great deal of common sense. He knows what we are talking about, even if his civil servants do not necessarily know, and I am confident that if he was on a jury, he would know what he was looking at.

[Mr Francois]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s vote of confidence in that respect. It is kind of him. The point I am making is that his Bill would mandate the courts. My argument is that the courts already have sufficient power to increase sentences if they believe that such sentiments are an aggravating factor, but can make that choice at their own discretion. It is not as though the courts could not do that without the Bill. They already can; it is just that the Bill would mandate them to do so, which might lead to some practical difficulties.

It is also worth pointing out that there is a fundamental difference between offences provoked by hostility to the work of the victim and offences motivated by prejudice against the inherent characteristics of the victim, such as homophobic crime. Section 146 of the 2003 Act is designed to help to change deep-rooted prejudices. It would be quite wrong to suggest that such provisions were necessary in relation to the armed forces, because I do not believe that such deep-seated prejudices necessarily apply.

I have not yet mentioned what I regard as the most telling argument against the Bill: the views of the intended beneficiaries. I am not aware of any general desire in the armed forces community for legislation of this type and it has certainly never been proposed to me by any of the chiefs of staff. The servicemen and women who wear their uniforms with pride want to be respected in their communities and to be considered part of those communities, and rightly so. We should not necessarily put them in a position where they are forced to explain why they require protection in law in a way that is not enjoyed by, for example, firemen or ambulance staff. It is a firm principle of the armed forces covenant that special provision for service people may be appropriate in some cases, but I am not necessarily convinced at this stage that the way the hon. Gentleman has drafted his Bill would achieve the desired effect.

Finally, we have to recognise that the criminal law is a devolved matter. The hon. Gentleman is aware that this is a difficult area—in fairness to him, the Bill clearly states that, as drafted, it extends to England and Wales only, so he is definitely cognisant of that—but the Bill opens the way to a situation where offences against members of the armed services could be handled differently across the UK. We have no interest in creating further anomalies of this kind. I have no doubt that the Scottish Parliament would be as firm as Westminster in its views on discrimination, but we also need to acknowledge and recognise that the question is perhaps not as straightforward when seen from the perspective of Belfast. The introduction of a provision similar to the one we are discussing today could, practically, be quite problematic in Northern Ireland under certain circumstances.

In pointing out the problems with the Bill, I would not wish the House to draw the conclusion that the Government are complacent or that we are doing nothing to counter discrimination against service personnel—quite the opposite. The armed forces covenant and the principles that we enshrined in statute in 2011 have a high profile across the whole of Whitehall and beyond. The first principle, that members of the armed forces community should not suffer disadvantage as a result of that membership, has given rise to many initiatives that are making a real, practical difference.

In the first statutory annual report on the armed forces covenant, published in December 2012, we described what we were doing to make those principles a reality. Let me give the House some examples. We are working to remove the disadvantage that the children of service personnel can face in the schools system as a result of their mobility, through the admissions code and through the service pupil premium. We have been consulting on the disadvantages faced by reservists in the workplace. We are ensuring that service personnel and leavers encounter a level playing field in access to social housing or Government-funded home ownership schemes.

At the same time, we are working to build the links between the armed forces community and the wider community, to improve the knowledge and understanding that must be at the centre of that relationship. From knowledge flows the esteem for our servicemen and women that is ultimately the most powerful way to counter discrimination. The community covenant has now been signed in over 230 local authority areas from Cornwall to the north of Scotland, signifying a real determination to strengthen ties with the armed forces. I am confident that, during the year, it will continue to gain further support. The grant scheme linked to the community covenant has allowed us to back a range of schemes that will help to put those declarations into practice. To that, we can now add the £35 million fund created as a result of the LIBOR fines, which will support charities with projects to help the armed forces and their families.

In giving the Bill careful consideration, I hope that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife will not mind me pointing out that it is not an entirely new proposal. That fact was highlighted earlier by my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge). It is always good to see him in his place in the House of Commons. Something very similar was proposed by the then Member for Grantham and Stamford, now Lord Davies of Stamford, in his “Report of Inquiry into National Recognition of the Armed Forces” in 2008. The hon. Member for Wrexham said that he could not quite remember the details of the report, so I shall refresh his memory. On page 6, in the chapter on “Increasing Visibility”, the then Member for Grantham and Stamford said:

“We further recommend that the Home Office, Crown Prosecution Service and Ministry of Justice consider issuing guidance respectively to the Police, Prosecutors and Judiciary to the effect that where victims of violence or threats of violence are persons in military uniform, those offences should be considered aggravated by that fact.”

The Labour Government of the day responded to that report a few months later, in the name of the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth). By then, of course, the author of the report had become a Defence Minister. Nevertheless, the Government’s response to the recommendation I have just referred to was very clear. It stated:

“We are confident…that Service personnel are properly protected against criminal offences by the criminal law as it stands.”

It went on to state that

“we do not think that a change in the law is necessary or appropriate.”

Given that robust response, I had expected the Opposition to take the same view of the Bill as we do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Lord Davies might have changed parties, but I will leave it to others to decide whether he has changed his mind.

Across the country, attitudes to our armed forces are positive and healthy. That is not only a good thing in itself; it is also an important contributor to morale. We should not underestimate the strength that our servicemen and women draw in doing their very difficult job from the knowledge that they have the respect and backing of their fellow citizens. They deserve it, and they earn it; we do not need to enlist the help of the criminal courts in order to engender respect for our armed forces.

[Thomas Docherty]

Will the Minister give way again?

[Mr Francois]

I am about to conclude, but I will give way briefly if the hon. Gentleman wants me to.

[Thomas Docherty]

Very briefly, is this an issue that the Minister will look at in the coming armed forces covenant report, and will he consider reporting back to the House on it?

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman pre-empts me. I was about to say that as a result of the Armed Forces Act 2011, we have a new vehicle at our disposal in the form of an annual report to Parliament—effectively a report on the state of the armed forces covenant. As I have already mentioned, we produced the first report in December last year. I acknowledge that it does not refer in detail to the issues we have been debating this afternoon. Given the concerns expressed, however, I can see the case for monitoring developments in this area, and for including any findings in the next report at the end of 2013. The focus of the annual report on the removal of disadvantage as one of the key covenant principles gives us sufficient latitude to do so. I sense no will in the House to object to our being able to achieve that.

On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that my caution about the law of unintended consequences does not diminish in any way my respect for what he is trying to achieve. On the understanding that we will most definitely look at this issue in the context of the armed forces covenant report, I hope he will consider withdrawing his Bill.

Armed Forces Redundancies

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Mark Francois

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

The Opposition cannot will the reopening of the SDSR unless they are prepared to will the additional means to do so. My understanding of their current position is that they wish to will it in spirit but admit that they do not have the money.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

In 2012, did the TA hit or miss its recruitment target, and if it missed it, by how much?

[Mr Francois]

I have already accepted that there were some blockages in the recruitment pipeline. I was aware that there had been difficulties, but I can assure the House that I investigated the problem at close range, as some generals can testify. I believe that those blockages have now been cleared, and that our recruitment and retention—which is also critical—will now improve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Mark Francois

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

Our policy is that where there are changes in the order of battle, it is very important that history and traditions of noble regiments are properly acknowledged. In the first instance we look to the regimental councils to agree among themselves appropriate proposals to do this. I understand that the Mercian regimental council has come up with proposals that are going through an approvals process. Providing they are reasonable, which we think they are, we will be happy to endorse them.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

If the UK Government are to meet the costs of the C-17s for the Mali operation, will the Minister identify which Government Department will meet those costs?