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Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord, but I still remain in slight disagreement with him. What happens when there are increasingly such situations is that justice is administered by two different commanding officers and it is not seen as fair to anybody involved in it or to those serving in the unit. I welcome the move towards a single system of military justice. Many noble Lords have said that the Minister, the Ministry of Defence and the Bill team have been absolutely punctilious in keeping us aware of how the Bill has been developing over time. It is a substantial and complex Bill and I thank the Minister for involving us. I should just correct the assertion made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, of 34 stars. We make it 35 from these Benches. They are in cahoots with the Conservative Front Bench and their researchers. I have to tell the Minister that three stars that sit on the Lib Dem Benches will be doing it independently. That may be a good thing or a bad thing. We are going to have a lot of detailed work to do in Committee. An Armed Forces Bill presents an opportunity to consider some other aspects of modern military service. I do not remind your Lordships and many have already said it—we expect an enormous amount from the dedicated men and women who serve their country in the Armed Forces. We also expect them to operate under a much more stringent legal framework than those in civilian employment. That is understandable as the state authorises military personnel to use lethal force, and we must be certain that we have a disciplined body to deploy such force. At the same time, the state also owes a duty of care to its military given the sacrifices that they make, both in their freedoms and perhaps even their lives. We have talked about the sorts of ways we should approach that, in terms of reducing delays of justice and putting time limits within the Bill. That is something that we will certainly want to look at in Committee. The Army’s formulation of the military covenant expresses very well the approach we need to have in this, in that soldiers are expected to make personal sacrifices in the service of the nation. But the other half of that bargain is that British military personnel must always be able to expect fair treatment, to be valued and respected as individuals and they and their families will be sustained and rewarded by commensurate terms and conditions of service. It is therefore against both sides of the covenant that we must judge the Bill. We have talked mainly about the effect on the chain of command and the commanding officer; we also need to be thinking in Committee about the individuals who are subject to this law. In that respect, the report by Nicholas Blake into Deepcut is a remarkably useful document in one aspect—that is the training of young servicemen. But it does read across into other parts of the Bill. It was unfortunate that your Lordships did not have a chance yesterday as they did in another place, to debate the Statement that was made about the Ministry of Defence’s response. That would have cleared some of the issues that we will have to talk about in Committee. The principles that I will be looking for in the way that the Bill goes forward is whether we are putting the right conditions for young men and women in the forces that are appropriate to the 21st century, rather than just an amalgamation of practices, some of which had their genesis in Victorian times. I turn now to the question of how the three Service Discipline Acts are to be merged as we have had some discussion on that. The Army and RAF elements are fairly closely aligned at the moment. We have heard why historically the Royal Navy gave its commanders greater powers and I add my congratulations to the Bill team for managing to get a good measure of agreement so that the three services can operate with a common list of offences. Those at Part 2 of Schedule 1, which require permission from the commanding officer are a good way to introduce the flexibility that we have talked about to meet different operational circumstances. We will need to consider in Committee maximum punishments and the detail of the offences which my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford addressed in his opening remarks. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, dealt in particular with Clause 8 on desertion, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Dean. That will need to be looked at, mainly because the punishment now is so disproportionate to the way people think that very few people are charged with desertion. It is also a question of making the Bill useful so that the various levels have practical utility. At the same time, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, raised important issues about the definition of active service in respect of Clause 8. The main discussion, not unexpectedly, has been about the role of the commanding officer and whether the Bill diminishes it in some way. There is particular concern among a number of noble Lords about the inability of the CO to dismiss a charge for a Schedule 2 offence. I am not inclined to believe that the Bill diminishes the standing of the CO; it seems appropriate that if he cannot handle a particular offence, he ought not to be able to dismiss it. We have also discussed the new arrangement for having a director of service prosecutions instead of the individual service prosecuting authority. Again, in the context of the Bill that seems a reasonable way forward, but we will want to have deep discussions in Committee about how to define the experience level that is needed for the holder of this post. The arguments made by the Chiefs of the General Staff to the Select Committee on the Bill about the need for military experience supported by all noble and gallant Lords and noble Lords throughout the House seemed totally persuasive. We will need to look at how we can define that job specification to get the right person there. With regard to what the Bill does for the rights of individual service personnel, I shall want to look at a number of issues in Committee. On the key area of complaints and redress to which a number of noble Lords have referred, we have ample evidence—as the Minister confirmed in his opening remarks—that the system is flawed and not terribly well understood. Those who believe they have cause for complaint worry that complaining will have an adverse effect on their career, and their complaints are often not taken forward promptly by the chain of command. It is not new: Sir Michael Betts, in 1995, as well as Blake, recommended the need for an independent complaints system. My noble friend Lord Roper raised the issue, as did the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. Such an independent commission, according to the Blake proposals, would be able to examine complaints of any nature from any member of the Armed Forces. Other nations, such as the United States and Australia, manage to operate a perfectly satisfactory military system with parallel independent systems. As my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford said, the Bill is very timid in this area. It offers the prospect of an independent member of the service complaint panel if the Secretary of State decides it is appropriate. Despite this morning’s headlines in the newspapers about military ombudsmen, the Government response to Blake, issued yesterday, offers only a minor modification. It is not enough; we will need to know how we are to meet recommendation 26 of the Deepcut review. Perhaps the Minister could say whether he has had a reaction yet from Mr Blake about whether he feels that his that recommendation has been met. We will need to look at how to get a commissioner of military complaints who can look more closely at unresolved complaints concerning a wider field than just harassment and bullying. We will seek to amend the Bill to meet this need and will consider the government amendments. There are many other aspects we will need to probe in Committee. The provisions relating to civilians has been mentioned by some; it is an area requiring consistent treatment. We have talked about the size of courts-martial panels; their service composition will be a matter for debate. I have less of a problem than many noble and gallant Lords and even my noble friend Lord Roper at the thought of having mixed services. If we are moving to a unified service discipline system, mixed courts-martial panels will have some advantages in terms of consistency of approach. We will doubtless discuss that in Committee. A great deal of detail is left to regulation. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, and my noble friend Lord Roper drew attention to the need for us to have some idea of what will be in the regulations. I have a suspicion that the Government have not yet thought that through, and we may have problems in getting enough of the information about the regulations in Committee. We need to see the context of the Bill, and someone in the MoD will have to burn the midnight oil for us to be able to do that. Finally, I take this opportunity to say a few words about implementation. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, spoke about the scale of the change. I know that the Ministry of Defence has thought about this, but it will nevertheless be a daunting task. Rather like the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, I built up my knowledge of Air Force law over many years—initial training, promotion exams, serving on courts martial and then various levels of command. That is the easy way, but it takes decades to do. Implementation in a couple of years will mean an extraordinarily steep learning curve for a large number of people, and a large training requirement for those who have to operate the new system. They must not make mistakes with it; we do not want that to happen because we have rushed this. I believe that a cautious approach should be taken. If it proves, as it may well do, more difficult than planned, sufficient time must be allowed.