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Armed Forces: Chain of Command

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway on introducing this   important debate and remind the House of my peripheral interest. It seems that nearly all the meat on this skeleton has been comprehensively shotblasted off by noble and gallant Lords and other noble Lords, who have far more experience than me. All noble Lords expected noble and gallant Lords to be tough, but in my 13 years in your Lordships’ House I have never heard noble and gallant Lords being so forceful. My noble friend Lord Marlesford referred to their dire warnings. The situation is bizarre and perilous. This Government, and to an extent their predecessors, have been steadily eroding the capacity of officers at all levels to exercise military discipline—and I mean military discipline. They do so as a sacrifice to the high altar of ECHR. Yet, at the same time, they are surprised when things go wrong. They appear to be content for Trooper Williams and other similar cases to run their course. It seems that some are more concerned that officers maintain a perfect system of military justice instead of military discipline with checks and balances, and rather less about officers making poor tactical judgments with their attendant serious consequences. The G1 situation is in extremely poor shape. We have undermanning and overstretch because we are operating outside the defence planning assumptions. Tour intervals are far too short. We have poor service accommodation. The TA cupboard is practically bare, and will be for at least another two years, because the TA has been used to sustain enduring operations rather than facilitate operations at the large scale of effort. We are experiencing falling standards of discipline and military ethos, and the grievance procedure is under severe strain. It does not mean that our Armed Forces are no longer effective—clearly they are still extremely effective—but it does mean that we are not maintaining standards. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, covered the need for the commanding officer to retain his powers. He did so far better than I could and I shall not attempt to do that myself. What evidence do I have for my assertions? We have recently incorporated the Bail Act 1976 into service law. That means that servicemen can be detained only if there is a risk of them interfering with witnesses or absconding. It is not now easy to detain a serviceman for his own good or to protect other members of the unit from violence. It is also much more difficult to take disciplinary action. Some time ago I informed your Lordships’ House that I reported the driver of a heavy recovery vehicle towing another heavy recovery vehicle for reckless driving. He was speeding: he overtook me on the A303 when I was driving at between 60 mph and 70   mph. I reported the circumstances to the Royal Military Police and they did not take a statement from me, even though I was a well qualified witness. That meant that no disciplinary action could be taken. A frequent complaint I hear from good-quality junior soldiers is that they see poorer quality soldiers ““getting away with it””. A good example is insubordination because it is difficult to provide a watertight case. It requires the judgment of the officers in the chain of command. Of course, it is a purely military offence: there is no civilian equivalent. But, at the same time, those good soldiers properly face disciplinary action for what I call ““there but for the grace of God go I””-type offences. I have been there myself. Those are all matters for Ministers since they proposed the changes to legislation enacted by Parliament. What depresses me most is that Front-Bench politicians seem reluctant to question the appropriateness of the ECHR. Turning to another G1 issue, during OPTELIC 1, we deployed 32,000 men and women in the land component alone, to which we should add the maritime and air components. The operation was launched amid some controversy and lack of public support. All of us engaged in that operation did so with the utmost vigour, zeal and energy. Ministers invariably heap praise on our Armed Forces for the effect that we achieve. Of course, we left it to others to worry about the rights and wrongs of the operation, but we all faced the perils of war. We were also aware of the risk of misconduct on operations—the subject of our debate. I suspect that many of us secretly fear a question about our conduct on operations. Perhaps that fear was greater than that of being wounded or killed on operations. When I meet one of my former colleagues on that operation, we invariably ask each other: ““Have you got it?”” Two years later we ask the same question. ““It””, of course, is the campaign medal for that operation. I have resisted raising the issue for a long time for reasons that will be obvious to your Lordships. But I think that more than two years after the end of OPTELIC 1, I am entitled to ask why the vast majority of us engaged in that operation have not already received that campaign medal. Last week, a one-star officer who served on OPTELIC forcefully impressed on me how unhappy and embarrassed he was about appearing in service dress without his campaign medal—that sandy-coloured medal that everyone recognises. I have been in the same position as a Member of your Lordships’ House. I must now sit down.