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Armed Forces Bill

We fully acknowledge our duty of care to all service personnel and the importance of understanding and addressing the vulnerabilities and requirements of those under the age of 18. Much work has already been done to improve safeguards for those who join the Armed Forces under 18, but we recognise that more can be done. Our responses to the House of Commons Defence Committee’s Duty of Care report and the Deepcut review reflect the importance which we attach to this issue. We firmly believe that we should continue to recruit from age 16, but we have a clear commitment to take all feasible measures to ensure that those who have not reached the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities. The UK ratified the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict on 24 June 2003, and procedures are in place to ensure that under-18s are withdrawn from their units before deployment on operations, wherever possible. However, there may be some situations where, exceptionally, there will be a risk of direct involvement in hostilities by under-18s. For example, that could happen if a ship or a unit is already in theatre and it is not practical to remove under-18s without undermining operational effectiveness or if removing them would endanger the mission or the safety of other personnel. We would not want to rule out the possibility of suitably qualified personnel aged 17 or over undertaking armed patrolling duties. They would be judged by a competent officer to have the maturity and appropriate attitude to take personal responsibility for a firearm with live rounds and would be accompanied by another appropriately trained and qualified service person. Particularly for the Army, weapons handling and guard duty are important aspects of service life. We fully recognise the special responsibilities that come with arming under-18s and take appropriate precautions relating to their safety and well-being. These include: tighter procedures to identify those at risk of self-harm and to deny them access to means; the need for weapons training and assessment before an individual is qualified to be armed; the responsibility of the chain of command to know each individual and to be confident that they are sufficiently mature and sensible to carry a weapon; and the requirement for each guard to be under the command of a guard commander. Any detachment isolated from the main guard is to be commanded by an NCO. Commanders at all levels are responsible for ensuring that all personnel issued with arms and ammunition for security duties are properly trained and that regular refresher training is carried out. We have taken steps to reduce the need for trainees to conduct armed guarding duties as a routine requirement by increasing recruitment to the Military Provost Guard Service. In the longer term, it is expected that the recruitment of additional members to the Military Provost Guard Service will obviate the need for phase 2 trainees to undertake routine guard duty. We fully appreciate that the training environment should take into account the specific requirements of recruits and trainees under the age of 18. In the Army, there are training facilities exclusively for recruits under the age of 17 at Harrogate and Bassingbourn, although some under-17s are also trained at other training establishments. However, we do not believe that this is an appropriate approach to adopt across the Armed Forces, as accommodating under-17s separately from their colleagues would cause barriers that do not reflect the reality of the service environment. We have, however, concentrated on improving accommodation for all recruits at several training establishments, and there will be ongoing improvements to the training environment through the defence training review. Commanding officers take their responsibilities towards their people extremely seriously, and they are well aware of the particular needs of younger recruits and trainees. Guidance for commanding officers specifically relating to working with under-18s is being reviewed in the light of the Deepcut review. Other work has included the development of a ““care of trainees”” module, which was introduced to the training programme for instructors and other supervisory staff and has now been incorporated into the ““train the trainer”” course for instructors. In addition, a new policy on the provision of supervisory care in phase 1 and phase 2 training establishments has been introduced. This requires each unit to produce a supervisory care directive, which is based on the thorough assessment of the risk to trainees, taking into account the particular factors pertaining to the establishment and nature of the training undertaken. In view of the measures already being introduced, which I have described, I am confident that the needs of service personnel under the age of 18 are being robustly addressed and that there is no requirement to introduce primary legislation to enforce the special provision for these young service personnel.