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Armed Forces Bill

moved Amendment No. 21: Page 9, line 30, after ““orders”” insert ““or advice”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Minister wrote to me on 24 October in the light of our discussion in Committee about unfitness or misconduct through the use of drugs. I raised two separate issues in Committee: first, the question of advice from a senior officer or senior member being the reality rather than an order; and, secondly, performance-enhancing drugs. My Amendments Nos. 21 and 22 deal with advice. The Minister in his letter told me that there is really not a problem. He says: "““This is something we believe should be controlled by clear instructions to service personnel not to advise others to take drugs without having medical advice to that effect. We do not believe therefore that this is a problem in practice””." I hope the Minister will tell us how often, and in what form, these instructions are issued. In my 32 years of military service I cannot recollect having received any instruction of that kind. The letter goes on to say: "““That said, each serviceman is expected to exercise some personal responsibility for his own intake of drugs. In considering whether to take disciplinary action, the respective rank of the individual who took the drug and the person giving the advice would be taken into account””." Perhaps the Minister will explain what he meant by that. If a junior soldier is advised by a sergeant and accepts the advice, is he charged? If the advice comes from a warrant officer, is he not charged? That seems a curious practice. We are putting an unfair burden on our troops if we are asking them to make that sort of informed decision. The letter says that performance-enhancement drugs are, "““a developing area of research, and at present we do not sanction their use by service personnel””," although I note from col. 269 of Hansard of11 October that the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, said in Committee that he has on operations carried a pill in his pocket in times of dire trouble. We have a problem with the definition of performance-enhancing drugs, and I do not believe the Minister has provided the necessary assurances for a Bill that is about how we will deal with them. He says that such drugs are not sanctioned ““at present””, which presumably means he is keeping his options open. His letter goes on to say: "““In our view it would be improper to give any such order in respect of any performance enhancing drug which carried any risks whatsoever””." Again, I am not sure that that fills me with confidence. The question is: to whom would the risks apply? Presumably, the purpose of taking a performance-enhancing drug is to increase the risks to the enemy. It may have minimal risks to the person who takes it, but what about the risks to the person’s colleagues and allies? In Committee I referred to the effect of performance-enhancing drugs on air crew members involved in friendly fire incidents. Even following the Minister’s helpful and full explanatory letter, I remain concerned that we do not seem to have made much progress on how we address the issue of performance-enhancing drugs. I beg to move.