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Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, as I have said before in this Chamber, I accept without reservation the need for members of the Armed Forces to live and work within a relevant legal framework. For those who may have breached such laws, I recognise that there have to be appropriate and effective procedures for dealing with such cases. I also have no difficulty in principle with bringing such arrangements together under a single Armed Forces Bill, so long as it also addresses the specific and necessary needs of the individual services, which have been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. But those responsible for defining such a legal framework for our Armed Forces and those who may subsequently be involved in dealing with alleged breaches under the new processes defined in the Bill need to have a clear understanding and personal awareness of the uniquely demanding nature of service life. Members of our Armed Forces must automatically accept their commitment to combat or other operations, often at very short notice, without choice or consultation, thereby putting themselves in harm’s way and, if needed and authorised under the their rules of engagement, taking lethal action themselves. In many cases today, as we can clearly see on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, those demands are made not just on commanders in the field, but on the most junior ranks, often in highly lawless societies, where their potential adversaries, whoever they might be, often operate totally unconstrained by any legal niceties or human rights considerations. So, from my perspective, combat operations have no equivalent in any other profession, while today an ever smaller proportion of our population at large, including Members of the other place and Her Majesty’s Government, have any first hand experience of such operations. In a wider sense, that is greatly to be welcomed, because it is a clear indication of the overall effectiveness of our security and defence policies over the past 40 years since National Service conscription was phased out in the early 1960s and has not been needed since that time. One less obvious effect is that many of those seeking to introduce this new legislation—including arrangements for dealing with alleged breaches by the Armed Forces on operations—have no first-hand experience of such a uniquely demanding environment. This caused such concern both in the Armed Forces and more widely among the public when, for example, serious charges were laid and men brought to trial after unacceptably long delays of three years or more, but the charges were then dismissed or the men found not guilty. I therefore welcome the Minister’s acknowledgement of the adverse consequences of such delays and the proposed amendment for addressing this matter referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever. This also bears directly on some other aspects of the Armed Forces Bill as currently drafted. For example, who is to appoint the independent Director of Service Prosecutions and how will he be selected for such a post? What direct experience of combat operations will he have had to inform his judgment on the prosecution of specific cases? Furthermore, such cases, when they are referred to the Service Prosecuting Authority or the Crown Prosecution Service, may have had their origins in highly lawless and violent environments, where normal forensic investigations cannot possibly be conducted as they are in civil cases, despite the best endeavours of the Royal Military Police. In such demanding cases, how is the performance of the Director of Service Prosecutions and, where engaged, the Crown Prosecution Service to be assessed and by whom? For example, would a series of failed prosecutions, after an inordinate delay before trial, have a bearing on the career progression of those individuals concerned, as it surely must on the lives of our servicemen and their families who have gone through this harrowing process? Finally, in the light of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, how are the government Ministers involved in the commitment of our Armed Forces to military operations to be accountable for their actions? Personally, I accepted the case for the deployment of our Armed Forces on operations in Iraq over three years ago on the basis that there was apparently clear evidence of illegal and threatening weapons of mass destruction and that UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which was already in place as a last-chance warning to Saddam Hussein, provided an adequate legal basis for such an operation. We quickly learnt that no such specific threat existed. Who in Her Majesty’s Government at that time was responsible for developing and delivering the longer-term, wider strategy for Iraq, in concert with the United States, including timely and effective arrangements for its reconstruction after the war-fighting phase had been concluded? The evidence now suggests that no such timely and credible plans were prepared, despite a number of questions in this House at the time, hence the continuing mayhem and bloodshed in parts of Iraq, which still threaten the lives of our Armed Forces and others today. This, in turn, relates to the question of war-making powers, currently being reviewed by the Constitution Committee in this House. In the light of this Bill, that committee might wish to consider the relative responsibilities and accountability of those formally committing us to military operations and those members of our Armed Forces who then have to undertake them. I should emphasise that I raise the matter not as a criticism of past events, but because under this Bill, as I understand it, the Attorney-General, who would normally advise the Government on the legal justification for a possible military operation, would also have responsibility for the superintendence of the new Director of Service Prosecutions. Given the apparent discrepancies in the Government’s accountability for such operations and the overlong delays in bringing military cases to trial, we would be wise to look very closely at some of the details to which I have referred in the Armed Forces Bill before us, including the appointment and role of the Director of Service Prosecutions and to whom he should be accountable for his performance. If none of those concerned has ever themselves been subject to the reality of combat operations, how can they then make an informed and balanced judgment on such matters.