Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Stewart Malcolm McDonald

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

That is because I know what I am doing, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you well know.

Let me say this to the Minister for Defence People and Veterans. We always try to find the maximum consensus, but I rather suspect that we just cannot agree on this Bill. He is not willing to change it to the degree I would like to see it changed, which in essence would mean scrapping it and letting the review come forward. When we table amendments in Committee, it will be interesting to see what they say; I am sure the Minister will be interested to read them, and it will be interesting to see how the Government approach them. As I say, we all know what is going to happen: the Government have a huge majority and are not going to accept anything that they feel they do not have to. We do not agree with them that the Bill is moderate at all, which is why we will vote against its Second Reading tonight.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The Minister for Defence People and Veterans is keen that we look at the Bill itself. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill creates a presumption against prosecution for a class of defendants, placing one group above the other in the eyes of the law? Does he agree that that is unprecedented in our domestic legal systems, whether we speak of England and Wales or the separate and independent jurisdiction in Scotland? That is unprecedented and that is what is objectionable about the Bill: it does away with the idea of equality before the criminal law, and that is wrong.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely correct in saying that. I would go further and say that actually, in terms of the whole scope of the Bill and how it protects the Ministry of Defence from claims coming from members of the armed forces themselves, as brilliantly illustrated by the shadow Secretary of State in his speech earlier, it is not welcomed by those people who need protection. We all agree that they need protection, but we cannot agree with the Government that this Bill is the way to do it.

The context is this: this Parliament has no power to prevent the Government from entering a discretionary conflict. There is no war powers Act. When Tony Blair took the country to war—a war that, in an interesting contribution earlier, the Defence Secretary said he now accepts was illegal, but which his party supported at the time—he at least came to this Parliament and held a vote. When the airstrikes in Syria took place in Easter 2018 under the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), that was done away with; that discretion was used without any parliamentary consent.

On the issue of special forces oversight or lack thereof, we stand out as unusual, even by comparison with a country such as the United States with zero oversight of special forces operations. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said earlier, this Bill creates two levels of playing field for people in this country. This is all unwelcome and highly unusual. There is a reason that no other country has a version of this Bill on its statute book or before its national legislature. Members of the armed forces are rightly expected to perform to a high standard and members of the armed forces are right to expect a high standard of us in this House, but for the reasons I have outlined we will vote against this legislation tonight. Members of the armed forces are entitled to a better standard than this.