Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a real privilege to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Dannatt, whom I greatly respect. He has raised some of the issues that we have been discussing over the last two days. I have made my views well known on those aspects, and I do not propose to challenge what he has just said. He is absolutely right in requiring there to be a duty of care set out in statute—a touchstone whereby the ways in which service personnel are dealt with can be tested.

In our own way, those who have practised in courts martial have seen the sort of improvements to which the noble and gallant Lord referred. I recall that, at the first court martial that I went to, there was a lot of swishing of swords—swords pointed at the guilty man when the decision was announced, and so on. Also, I think I played some part in the abolition of the process whereby an accused in a Navy court martial was marched into the court with a cutlass at his back. I put down a Question questioning that particular practice and, when I got up to hear the Answer from the noble Lord, Lord Bach, he announced that the practice had been abolished. But that is only symbolic of the very considerable changes that have taken place in the court martial system, which I believe have brought greater fairness and fewer problems of what one might call “shock and awe”—of a soldier going in to stand trial before a court martial of senior officers. In that way, we have sought I think to modernise the old court martial system, and we have been successful in that. If that sort of movement could be applied generally and not just in the very narrow area to which I have referred, it would be a very good thing. I wholly support the noble and gallant Lord in his amendment.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I speak in support of this amendment, to which I have attached my name. In doing so, I convey the apologies of my noble and gallant friend Lord Boyce, whose name is also on the amendment but who is prevented by a medical issue from speaking this afternoon.

To explain why my noble and gallant friend and I support the amendment, it is necessary for me to go back to the very purpose of the Bill. It is in the Minister’s own words to reassure service personnel and veterans that the Government have their back and that they will be offered a degree of protection from the pressures and strains of malicious prosecutions. But the Government know that prosecutions are not the issue; that much has been widely acknowledged during debates on the Bill to this point. It is the seemingly endless cycle of accusations and investigations that is casting such a shadow over our service personnel and veterans, not the prospect of being brought to trial.

It is a principle of our legal system that an accused person is innocent until proved guilty—but this is true only in a narrow legal sense. It simply means that the burden of proof lies with the accuser, not the defender; it does not mean that an accused person is treated as innocent. For example, they may be held in detention. They are certainly subject to the wondering if not outright suspicion of observers, and they certainly suffer the agonies of uncertainty and the mortification of being suspected of and, in the minds of some, guilty of a criminal offence. The strain on them and their families is immense. Can anyone doubt the anguish that assailed those accused as a result of Operation Midland, despite the fact that not only were there no prosecutions but their accuser was shown to be lying? Can anyone deny that they suffered acutely—and in some cases still do?

Accusations must certainly be investigated, but such investigations will bring pain to guilty and innocent alike. How much more is this the case when the investigations are repeated and protracted? That is the evil that this Bill should address. The Government’s view seems to be that it is not possible to legislate on investigations since that would almost certainly increase the risk of UK service personnel and veterans coming under the scrutiny of the International Criminal Court. They have therefore taken an indirect approach to the problem, in the hope that codifying the factors that must be considered by a prosecutor will discourage speculative and malicious accusations. Of course, this is a wholly untested thesis; it may work to an extent, but equally it may have little impact.

For my part, I believe that the Government have by their own lights set themselves an impossible task in this Bill. They have recognised that they cannot address the real problem directly, so has come at it obliquely with a proposition that will have dubious benefits and poses real presentational risks—risks that could harm the reputation of our Armed Forces. Meanwhile, the underlying issue remains: the pressure of investigations. If that cannot be addressed legislatively, it is surely incumbent on the Government to ensure that those accused are supported appropriately during their ordeal—hence this amendment.

If we cannot entirely prevent the suffering, at least let us do all that we can to ameliorate it. The Government may say that they do so already, and there is no need to legislate on the matter, but I would find such a view puzzling. The Government have accepted that prosecutors already take into account the considerations set out in the Bill, but they regard their codification in law as necessary for the reassurance of our military personnel. If they take that view on something that they admit is not the real problem, how can they take a contrary view on something that is? That would seem to me to be an extraordinary contradiction.

The many amendments proposed to this Bill so far have sought largely to ameliorate the harmful effects that it might have. This amendment, on the other hand, seeks to tackle as far as possible the root of the problem that the Bill is intended to address, and I commend it to the Government.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, what a privilege to have heard, let alone to follow, the speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, so much of which I completely agreed with. One thing I would say is that, while legislators are limited in what they can do in this regard—and he and his noble friends have had a very good go at using a probing amendment to try to get the Government to stand by veterans and service personnel in real terms—the Government can actually do more.

They could do more even now to address the problem of investigations. Of course, they could not do so by legislation alone, but they could throw resources at it and redesign the nature of investigations, and they could include the noble and gallant Lord and his colleagues, among others, in creating a new investigation system that would inspire the confidence of the public at large, of wretched human rights lawyers like me and, crucially, of veterans and personnel. They could do what we have said in recent days is essential, which is to ensure that investigations are robust, independent and speedy, and not repeated. That could do a great deal to avoid the kind of anxiety that we have heard so much about in consideration of this Bill.

That is not something that any mere legislators can do, so we have to probe in this way and table amendments, such as the previous one from my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe about laying reports, and this more extensive one from the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup and Lord Boyce, and my noble friend. These amendments are, of course, necessarily limited by the scope of the Bill. I therefore understand why, for example, the noble Lord could not include in the duty of care to service personnel chronic issues of housing and of mental health problems beyond just those caused by litigation.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. I hope that his concern about delay will be addressed in Amendment 4, to which I commend him, when we come to it.

I was talking to a cousin of mine at the weekend, a retired Army major, about his evacuation as a boy to Devon in the spring of 1944. The fields were crammed with soldiers, he said, until, on one day, they all vanished. I have my own memories of the Royal Welch Fusiliers exercising in the fields around my home before departing as suddenly, some to lose their lives on the beaches of Normandy. We owe the military an enormous debt. In this House, there will be few who did not lose close family members in the conflicts of the 20th century for the defence of our country and for the freedom of Europe and of Asia.

Today, I think there is great sensitivity for the welfare of our Armed Forces and their families, when we have committed our young men to risk their lives in overseas operations when the lifeblood of our country is not at risk at all—where the overseas operations have been for contestable political reasons and no longer, even as in our dubious past, for conquest and empire.

The military depends on discipline and the obeying of lawful orders within a framework of law. When we come later in the year to debate the new Armed Forces Bill, it may surprise many to discover that it is essentially concerned with discipline and military justice. The reason is that it is discipline and the law which enforces it which bind the Armed Forces into an effective arm of the state.

In my professional career, I never prosecuted at court martial. I was always on the defence side, in one instance for an officer but mainly for ordinary soldiers. The stated policy for this Bill, as set out in the Explanatory Notes, is to protect sailors, soldiers and airmen against historic investigations and prosecutions deriving from them. I do not believe that a presumption against prosecution is a protection; I believe that it weakens the bonds of discipline.

What the progenitors of this policy have failed to recognise are the protections which already exist. A soldier is trained to kill and to maim and given the means of so doing. His protection is that he does not commit a criminal offence in the use of violence if he acts in accordance with lawful orders—the lawful commands of his superiors. If he acts without or against those orders, by raping a woman or by shooting a defenceless civilian or a wounded or captured enemy, it surely must be public policy that, if proved, he is to be punished for it. He is also criminally and personally responsible, even if he is acting in obeying an unlawful order; for example, to torture a prisoner for information. But even in that case there is a system of justice, which we have developed over centuries, which is specifically designed to protect him.

He will know that the decision to prosecute will rest in the hands of an independent Director of Service Prosecutions. All the successive holders of that office will have to have demonstrated—to use the words of the Explanatory Notes—

“proper regard to the challenging context”

and the mitigating factors specified in the Bill. It is the DSP who is charged with considering the service interest and the public interest.

Further, a defendant soldier will not appear before the ordinary civilian jury, far removed from the stresses and strains of the battlefield, but before a panel of responsible and experienced officers and warrant officers who will have personal knowledge of the exigencies of the service and will take those matters into account. The soldiers who were engaged in the torture of Baha Mousa and those detained with him were acting under the unlawful orders of the corporal in charge. He pleaded guilty to a war crime, but they were all acquitted of murder or neglect of duty. A civil jury might have taken a different view.

Of course, the Government say that, if there is evidence of serious criminal acts, the presumption does not prevent a prosecution entirely, nor does the requirement for the consent of the Attorney-General—I shall say more on those topics later in this Committee. So what is the presumption and the seriousness of a crime which will rebut it? Is it a presumption against prosecution for stealing the mess funds in Iraq 10 years ago or, as in the current trial at Bulford, for claiming school fees as legitimate expenses? Of course not. If, as the former Judge Advocate-General, Jeff Blackett, has publicly stated, there have been only eight trials of serious crime in relation to operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, in which of these would this presumption have operated to prevent a prosecution? Would it have been in the case of Sergeant Blackman, who only subsequent to his court marital admitted on appeal having deliberately shot under stress a captured and wounded man? Would it have prevented the prosecution of the eight soldiers and three officers in the Baha Mousa case? If it would, there are a number of consequences.

First, the use of the presumption would be a violation of the spirit of the laws of this country which maintain coherence and discipline in our Armed Forces. There is nothing in the statute law since 1661 or in the Articles of War which followed which talks about a presumption against prosecution. The law and the values it represents protect our military, and those who speak of the dangers of “lawfare” know not of what they speak.

Secondly, it would violate the laws of war which exist internationally to temper the brutality and the devastation which are the inevitable consequences of armed conflict.

Thirdly, it would invite the investigation and punishment of British soldiers by the International Criminal Court. That court has, by treaty, investigatory powers and jurisdiction for criminal offences committed by the British Armed Forces. I suspect that its prosecutors are eager to demonstrate that the values and standards which are the core reason for the court’s existence are not designed simply for Slavic generals or African despots but are universal. Picture Parliament Square if a British squaddie or officer stands trial in The Hague. This Prime Minister would undoubtedly break the treaty.

Fourthly, it inhibits investigations. That is the barely concealed motivation for the triple lock in the Bill. I challenge the Minister to deny it. I shall discuss the difficulties of investigating overseas actions later but, with limited resources, why would an investigator undertake an expensive and time-consuming investigation if his report had to mount the hurdles of a presumption against acting on his report by the prosecutors and the fiat of the Attorney-General?

Fifthly—and we shall discuss this in the context of derogation from the Human Rights Act—it is a signal to an enemy or an insurgent that they need show no restraint in torturing or killing captured British soldiers in precisely the same way. Show me the Minister of Defence who is prepared to dispatch troops who are exposed, by the very legislation that we are considering today, to retaliatory risks such as these.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I have some significant concerns over the Bill, but I confess that I am puzzled by Amendment 1 and those other amendments directly associated with it.

A proposal to extend the timescale for the application of the provisions within Part 1 of the Bill from five years to 10 years must surely be based on some perceived shortcoming associated with the lesser period that would be remedied by the substitution of the longer one, but what is that relative shortcoming? I start by accepting the Government’s assertion that there is no significant legal watershed involved in the proposed limitation. After that period, prosecutors will need to take account of the various considerations set out in the Bill but, as was generally conceded at Second Reading, a competent prosecutor would take account of those considerations even if the case arose before the expiry of the five-year period.

If this be so, arguments that defendants would try to defeat investigations by delaying them beyond the five-year period, or that those who had been rendered physically or mentally unable to begin such proceedings until after the expiry of that period would be denied justice, must surely rest on the presumption that the prosecuting authority is incompetent or biased. In that case, no proceedings would be safe, whenever initiated.

Similarly, the argument that the Attorney-General would act politically—for which I read “improperly”—regarding his or her responsibilities calls into question an important part of our entire legal structure. That would raise serious constitutional issues that went well beyond the scope of this Bill. It has also been suggested that it might be difficult to gather adequate evidence within a five-year period, particularly if the relevant conflict was still ongoing. That may well be true, but it might also be difficult to gather satisfactory evidence after the passage of many years. There is a need for balance here.

All this raises the question of whether there is any substantive benefit to be gained by defining a time period at all. The Government say that there is value in codifying the requirement in the way that they propose. If that is the case, why not codify it so that it applies to all potential prosecutions, no matter what timescale is involved? However, that is not what this amendment seeks to achieve, and it is to this amendment that I speak. Assuming that there must be a timescale, a five-year period is a reasonable span to choose in preference to any other. The Government’s position appears to be that one of the main purposes of the Bill is to reassure serving personnel that they will have a significantly reduced risk of being left exposed to prolonged, repeated, and mischievous accusations. If so, a period of 10 years would go a long way towards defeating that purpose. Although 10 years may not be for ever, it will seem like it to those who undergo such risks. I very much doubt that they would take any real comfort from such a provision.

Amendment 1 may be a way of neutering Part 1 to such an extent as to render it largely meaningless. If so, surely the various questions on clause stand part in the group are a better way of achieving this, although that would be to reject a Bill that has already been passed by the other place. Some might in this instance wish that we could, but they must consider whether we should.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 29, to which I have attached my name. Its purpose is to ensure that service personnel are not debarred by time from pursuing claims against the Government for harm suffered on overseas operations. Of course, the purpose of the Bill is to provide reassurance to those very personnel that they will be to some degree protected against malicious proceedings, so it seems rather perverse that the Bill should also seek to prevent them gaining redress for harm that they themselves suffered. The Government have asserted that such an outcome is not their intention, and of course I accept that. However, the question is not the present Government’s intention but the potential consequences of the Bill as worded. It seems that one consequence might well be to deprive a number of serving personnel or veterans of their right to pursue a claim against the Government.

Part of the Government’s response to this concern is to stress the small numbers involved. They say that some 94% of service personnel and veterans who brought claims relating to events in Iraq and Afghanistan did so within six years. Are we then to assume that, had the proposed timescale been applied to them, the Government believe that it would have been acceptable for the other 6% to lose the opportunity to pursue their cases? The Government also say that the vast majority of cases relate to events in the UK, not to overseas operations. That may be so, but to argue that only a small number of service personnel would suffer injustice does not seem a respectable position for a Government to take at any time, let alone in a Bill that is supposed to provide support and reassurance to those people.

This timescale is very different from the one proposed in Part 1. The latter, as I observed earlier, does not introduce a significant legal watershed. Complaints can still be brought to prosecution, subject to certain tests that ought to be applied with or without the Bill. The time limit placed upon complaints brought by service personnel or veterans is of a very different character. It is not a high bar—it is an impassable wall. In support of this absolute limit the Government have prayed in aid statements from the courts about the need for limitation periods in civil litigation to ensure legal certainty and finality and to avoid the need to adjudicate on events so far past that memories and evidence become too unreliable. Of course I see the sense in that, but why six years? Upon what empirical data is such a time period based?

I listened very carefully to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, but since the expiry of the proposed time limit would have such dramatic legal consequences, there seems to be a powerful argument for a much longer period in this case. That which is proposed in the current Bill is too short, too disadvantageous to serving personnel and veterans, and should be reconsidered.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lady Smith and others, I am concerned that there should not be a different principle of limitation for service personnel for injuries received as the result of overseas operations as opposed to those injured while they are serving in the United Kingdom. However, I want to also speak up for the civilians in the country where the overseas operations took place.

I am not naive about this. I very much recall a court martial in Colchester, in 2005, for which a lady was brought from Iraq with a complaint that a British soldier had stripped her naked in the street and had caused her huge embarrassment. She went into the witness box, took the oath on the Koran and then turned to the judge and said, “Now I have taken the oath on the Koran, I have to tell the truth. I made it all up.” There were many complaints that were made up at that time.

At the time of the Baha Mousa trial, Mr Phil Shiner was wandering around trying to infiltrate our discussions, and he always had someone taking a note of the evidence as it emerged, which he subsequently misapplied. I am very glad that he was struck off by the Law Society.

That, however, should not prevent, in an appropriate case, a claim for damages going forward if it is equitable to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, expressed with considerable authority the complexity of this area of law and the difficulties that exist in any event—never mind in overseas operations.

There are valid claims. I put in a Written Question on 2 June last year. The Answer told me that, since 2003, there have been

“1,330 claims for damages relating to alleged misconduct … The claims … focus predominately on alleged unlawful detention but many incorporate allegations of mistreatment”.

The Ministry of Defence has paid out £32 million in respect of these allegations, and says that it does not pay out without consideration and finding the claim valid. It meets the bill, which does not fall on the soldier in question.

The practice of the court is not to extend to extend limitation periods easily, and that is a particular concern where valid claims are coming forward. When the court considers whether to extend the limitation period, it investigates all the circumstances. It is very difficult for a poor person in a foreign country to bring a case, and as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, pointed out, it is not easy to extend the limitation period. Date of knowledge is frequently an issue. Sometimes it almost seems as if when a court hears an application for an extended limitation period it will be granted on the nod. But that is not the case: it is a difficult thing to argue. I am, therefore, in favour of these amendments, and I look forward to seeing how they appear on Report.

Cadet Forces

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

I reassure my noble friend that the expansion scheme has been a great success, exceeding time limits for achievement. Obviously, the pandemic has had an impact, not least on our school recruitment, because we have missed the September 2020 date, for example. But there is a strong partnership between the MoD and our cadet units in schools and we are mindful of that. That is partly governed by the Department for Education as well. I thank my noble friend for raising the issue. It is an important programme and we are confident of it making positive progress.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the cadet forces constitute one of the finest youth organisations in the land, but they are crucially dependent on the adult volunteers who organise them and run their activities. These people have come under increasing pressure in recent years, because of growing regulatory and other burdens, and have found their roles becoming less rewarding. Can the Minister assure the House that, in the wake of Covid, the Ministry of Defence will place sufficient emphasis on recruiting and retaining these adult volunteers, without whom the cadet forces simply would not exist?

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

The noble and gallant Lord is absolutely right. We are very mindful of the significance of the role played by our cadet force adult volunteers, to whom I pay tribute for their extraordinary achievements during the pandemic. Undeterred, they have continued to encourage and engage with the cadet forces and are deserving of our highest admiration. We recognise that within the MoD and will support them in every way that we can.

British Armed Forces: Iraqi Interpreters

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

Yes, I will I certainly offer that reassurance to my noble friend. Part of the reason that we are currently carrying out this investigation is that we want to know what happened and, if unacceptable breaches took place, why they happened and how they came about. We share a duty to our interpreters who are employed by a contractor, and the measures in place ensure that if contractors assess that the measures are not sufficient, they are entitled to highlight these immediately to the MoD. Ultimately, if these concerns are not addressed, they can withdraw their workforce without penalty. However, we hope that that situation would never arise. We take our responsibilities very seriously.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister has said that the Government hold the contractors to the highest standards. What mechanisms and processes are in place to ensure that this is sustained over the long term? Threats to interpreters can arise some years after their employment; meanwhile, the contracting company may well have changed. Who then is responsible for their safety and support? I have some difficulty in seeing how this will work in practice.

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

Mindful of the vital job that interpreters do when they assist our Armed Forces on overseas operations, we would be very vigilant in trying to ensure that they were not placed at a disadvantage. The noble and gallant Lord focuses on an important point, which is part of what we consider to be our wider responsibilities. We would expect interpreters to express their concerns to us, even if they were no longer working for the contractor within the country. We still have a diplomatic presence and we would expect interpreters who were concerned to communicate either with the MoD or with the diplomatic presence.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the Government’s purpose in introducing the Bill, to provide greater certainty for service personnel and veterans regarding their potential criminal liability for purported actions taken during overseas operations, gives rise to two general questions. Is there a problem that needs to be addressed and, if so, how effective is the Bill in doing that? The answer to the first question is, I think, yes. The UK Armed Forces place the highest importance on carrying out their duties within the law. They fully understand that the rationale for having a uniformed military is that it, as an organisation, is permitted under international law to exercise destructive and lethal force, provided that it complies with the provisions of that law. In other words, adherence to the law is fundamental to the military’s very existence. This is why some senior serving personnel are nervous about the Bill. They do not wish there to be any doubt in people’s minds about their commitment in this regard.

It is also true that, despite this fundamental tenet, some military personnel do commit crimes on overseas operations. Our Armed Forces personnel in general exercise incredible judgment and restraint in the most dangerous and trying circumstances, but it would be unreasonable to expect that they should be entirely free of the faults and frailties that are part of the wider society from which they spring. When such crimes are suspected, they should be investigated thoroughly—and the investigation process itself would certainly bear improvement—and, if the evidence is sufficient, the perpetrators should be prosecuted. However, it is also the case that legal process has been increasingly used to pursue political and other non-legal objectives in relation to overseas operations. Members of the Armed Forces, who have often risked all at the behest of the Government and in the service of their country, have been caught in the middle of this procedural struggle. This has created immense mental stress for them and their families—stress that has been piled on top of the inevitable psychological impact of warfare with which they must already deal. We have a moral obligation to reduce that additional suffering to the maximum extent we can within the bounds of the rule of law.

So, how effectively does the Bill before us today achieve that objective? It attempts to strike a balance, but whether it is the best that can be done is not entirely clear. It certainly will not achieve its aim if it simply moves the legal process from UK jurisdiction to that of the International Criminal Court—quite the opposite, in fact. In addition, the Bill focuses on the issue of criminal prosecutions, but I am not sure that they are really the most significant problem. After all, the tests that the Bill introduces for prosecutors are mostly ones that they follow already, and that generally protect all people, civilian and military, from speculative trials. The stress on personnel arises less from actual prosecutions and more from protracted investigations, even when these come to nothing. We need look no further than at the notorious Metropolitan Police investigations under Operation Midland to see the truth of this. The lack of an eventual prosecution is not necessarily a protection against mental suffering. There is a doubt in my mind as to whether the Bill really gets at this issue.

Then there is the question of the extent to which the Bill aims to support members of the Armed Forces, and the degree to which it seeks to protect the Ministry of Defence. A department of state is well able to deal with vexatious claims. It may find them irritating and frustrating, but it is not subject to mental anguish in the way that individuals are, and I would have thought that it needs no special provision under the law.

Having said that, I am not clear that the provisions of the Bill are quite so dramatic as some have suggested. They do not condone or permit torture; nor is there a new time limit on pursuing such cases, only a more tightly but not obstructively defined set of conditions for doing so.

I for one entirely understand the rationale for excluding sexual offences from those conditions. It is not that a particular kind of offence is worse than another, but in one case an admitted outcome—death or injury—may reasonably be the result of lawful military action, while in the other a sexual assault can never be anything but criminal, whatever the circumstances. This seems to me a valid basis for excluding that category of offence from the provisions of the Bill.

So while I welcome the Bill, I believe that it can and should be improved. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the concerns that I have raised today, and to developing some of these themes further in Committee.

Afghanistan: Locally Employed Civilians

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The history of how we engage with a local population when we need the supply and support of interpretation services indicates that they are highly regarded and very well treated. They are employed and well remunerated for the services they provide. On the distinction between redundancy and resignation, it is fair to say that people who are made redundant have no control over the situation, and it was therefore felt appropriate that their qualifying period should be 12 months. On the other hand, people who decided to resign from the service obviously had their own reasons for doing so; they made their own decisions. That is why, although we think it right to expand the scheme, it seemed appropriate to make their qualifying criteria 18 months.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that the Government have a moral responsibility for locally employed civilians and their families who are endangered by their support for British operations, and that this responsibility still exists and must still be met, even when those civilians are employed by an intermediary contractor such as thebigword?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble and gallant Lord raises an important point. As he will be aware, the MoD currently does not employ interpreters. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has employees and is responsible for the terms and conditions of the employment. It is important that the UK sends out a positive message about how we value those we draw on to provide their skills and support in times of operational activity. That is what we drew on in Afghanistan, which is why we want to recognise the incredible contribution made by these locally employed civilians. I hope the expansion of this scheme reflects that ambition.

National Security Situation

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, this debate could hardly be more timely, coming as it does just a month after the publication of the Government’s national security capability review and following hard on the heels of the employment of chemical agents in Syria and the UK. I am pleased that, among all of our national convulsions over Brexit, we are, for a brief time at least, able to discuss the perilous global situation in which we find ourselves and the responses with which we might best counter the challenges we face.

Let me start with the security capability review itself. It makes a number of obvious points with which it is hard to argue. It is somewhat less convincing, however, when it comes to the “so what?” questions that flow from its analysis. I will touch on just a few of these. The first relates to the “fusion doctrine”, which I assume is what used to be known as the “comprehensive approach” in a new guise. The proposition that the UK should react to security challenges with a coherent, cross-disciplinary response that utilises all elements of power, soft and hard, in an appropriate mix is, of course, indisputable. The problem, though, is that Whitehall is not really very good at this. During the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, it took a lot of time and effort to get the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development working together effectively. The ad-hoc processes and individual relationships that went into making the endeavour successful did not, by and large, endure beyond those campaigns.

If the new doctrine is to be successful, and not just the whim of the year, it will require a fundamental shift in culture, as the security capability review itself acknowledges. However, a change of culture is one of the most difficult things to achieve: it takes sustained effort over many years and a system of rewards and sanctions that drive behaviour. A senior responsible official, while helpful, will not achieve this fundamental shift. Can the Minister tell the House how such a change in culture is to be driven and, most importantly, assessed across Whitehall over the long term?

Turning now to external issues, I sense a degree of schizophrenia in the capability review when it comes to China. Much is made of our commitment to a rules-based international system. China seems to acquiesce in such a system only if it gets to make up the rules itself. It has engaged in the theft of intellectual property on a massive scale, and it uses its increasing economic and industrial strength to leverage its own interests—not unreasonably—from a Chinese perspective. However, the capability review merely notes:

“Competition between states … including in the South China Sea, brings risks of miscalculation and conflict”.


It goes on to note, somewhat laconically:

“We have established a global comprehensive strategic partnership with China”.


What exactly is this strategic partnership? How are we balancing our engagement with China and our need for its investment with the protection of our national infrastructure and the wider observance of international rules and norms? There are clearly tensions here that it seems to me give rise to fundamental questions that the security capability review has ducked. I should be grateful if the Minister provided some enlightenment on this crucial matter.

There is, though, one strand running through the review that is both clear and compelling, although it raises more questions than it answers. In chapter after chapter, the review emphasises the importance of finding ways to partner effectively with the EU once we leave. I could not agree more. As I have said on previous occasions, our security in these islands has always been inextricably linked with the security of the rest of Europe, and no referendum can change that. We need urgently to agree with the EU a method of consulting and co-operating on a wide range of security and defence issues, and that means a method of consulting and co-operating on foreign policy matters more widely. This needs to be an ongoing and enduring process. Coming together just at times of crisis will not enable us to respond effectively to, let alone pre-empt, the common challenges we will face. The national security capability review sets out the requirement in stark terms but offers no solutions. Will the Minister tell the House what work is under way to provide the mechanisms and processes that are urgently needed to underpin our security in this regard?

I turn now to the burning issue of state-based threats within Europe, from Russia in particular. The capability review rightly highlights the considerable and increasing risks of conflict, but it is less clear on the strategy for dealing with this. There has been much talk of a new Cold War, but this is a misreading of the situation. We in the West do not face an ideological foe bent on global revolution, as was the case with the Soviet Union. We face a gangster regime that has plundered its own country for individual gain and seeks to increase its international stature and power by equally unsavoury means. How do we respond to such a challenge? First, it seems to me that we need to take a long view here. Our ultimate strategic objective should be a Russia that lives comfortably with its neighbours, adheres to accepted international norms and is a responsible member of the wider international community. It is therefore important that we continue to engage with Russia as and when we can and maintain channels of communication, even in times of great stress.

On the other hand, we need to be clear that certain behaviours simply cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. We need to be absolutely clear about our responses if we are to lower the risk of miscalculation. The bottom line in this regard must be our commitment to NATO and our undiminished support for Article 5. NATO must demonstrate its capability and resolve when it comes to the territorial defence of its members, and the UK should lead the way in this. Russia must be left in no doubt of the utmost seriousness with which we view the matter. Meanwhile, we must strengthen our capabilities to deal with asymmetric threats, particularly in cyberspace and in the various social strata of our nations. The UK has made a good start in this but still has a lot of catching up to do. More shadowy Russian actions outside these spheres will require more nuanced responses. These will not necessarily be effective in changing Russian behaviour in the short term, but the mere fact of a response is nevertheless important. Of crucial importance is the need to maintain a high degree of international unity in the face of Russian challenges, which only serves to underline the importance of the co-ordination and co-operation mechanisms within Europe to which I referred earlier.

One very difficult and pertinent matter which requires urgent thought is how the international community should approach the use of chemical weapons. We need to decide if the nature of these weapons and the requirement to sustain the Chemical Weapons Convention justify a coercive or retributive response to their use. If they do, that should be as part of a wider strategic programme of action to minimise the risk of chemical attacks and to punish them more comprehensively when they occur. One-off military responses may send a signal about our opposition to such weapons, but are unlikely by themselves to deter their use. This is an issue on which the security capability review is unhelpfully silent.

Finally, I remind the House of some of the words and phrases used by the Prime Minister in her introduction to the review, where she sets out what has changed since 2015:

“threats have continued to intensify and evolve and we face a range of complex challenges … the resurgence of state-based threats … the undermining of the international rules based order; the rise in cyber-attacks … the increase in threat posed by terrorism, extremism and instability”.

Well, quite. That is an accurate and very worrying picture of what is happening in our world. One must ask, though: how has all this affected our investment priorities in the UK? The answer seems to be not at all. The defence budget has been shown to be inadequate to meet the aims of the 2015 review, let alone to cope with the increased threats and challenges set out so clearly by the Prime Minister.

A strategy is truly a strategy only if it matches objectives with resources. It is simply no good parroting old tropes, as the national security capability review does, about a minimum of 2% of GDP being committed to defence, and about a 0.5% real-terms annual increase in spending. It should hardly be a source of great national pride that we have just avoided breaching NATO’s absolute minimum spending requirement, and a 0.5% annual increment is clearly not enough; nor is comparing our position to the delinquents in the alliance a strategic response to the challenges of the world.

We are in danger from a range of complex and growing threats; on that, I entirely agree with the Prime Minister. What is required now is not mere reorganisation and rebranding, but a programme of investment commensurate with those threats. Only then will we have a national security strategy worth the name.

Defence Review

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the Treasury-mandated starting point for the 2010 defence review was a reduction in the MoD’s budget of between 10% and 20% to be achieved over the first three years. The measures necessary to achieve such savings so quickly proved unpalatable, even to a Government focused wholly on the elimination of the deficit over the span of one Parliament. But even the savings that were eventually made, of some 7.5%, inevitably left a strategically incoherent defence programme. The best that could be done was to reach a position in 2015 from which coherence could be rebuilt, provided that substantial real-terms increases were made in the defence budget in each of the succeeding years.

In the 2015 review, the MoD produced a plan to restore coherence, although more slowly than envisaged in 2010, but the plan was inadequately funded. It relied on wholly unrealistic assumptions about the savings that could be made through efficiency. When, unsurprisingly, these failed to materialise, the plan was in trouble, and the subsequent fall in the exchange rate only exacerbated the problem.

The Government now face a choice: they can provide more money and fund the plan properly or they must come up with a new plan. I, of course, urge them to adopt the former course, not least because this is the minimum action that is required. Let it be remembered that the 2015 plan was about achieving coherence, not about restoring our defence capabilities to where they should be in this challenging and dangerous world. That would require an annual expenditure of more like 3% of GDP. Alas, I do not expect the Government to go so far. However, I trust that the Minister will, in due course, be able to confirm that they will at least do this bare minimum. I, like many other Members of your Lordships’ House, would view anything less with the gravest concern.

Armed Forces: Morale

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, Britain has a competitive advantage in defence, and that advantage is based on the commitment, professionalism and skills of our people. We place heavy demands on them all, including those in the Armed Forces whom we ask to risk their lives on operations. Therefore, we place a very high premium on recruiting, retaining and developing the right people. As set out in the 2015 SDSR, we have identified a number of long-term plans to ensure that the service offer to which I referred better reflects the aspirations and expectations of our personnel and new recruits.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, our future military capability depends on retaining sufficient talented and experienced personnel. That retention in turn depends on offering those personnel sufficiently challenging, rewarding and exciting training. Can the Minister reassure the House that, in its search for savings, the Ministry of Defence will not be looking to cut back in this area, which would be the falsest of all false economies?

[Earl Howe]

The challenge, when looking for efficiencies rather than straightforward savings, is to achieve the same or a better level of outputs with the money available. I can tell the noble and gallant Lord that, while training is of course under the spotlight, what we do not want to do is to dilute or degrade the quality of that training for those whose standards we set great store by.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 12th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 14 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham, who, because of the Statement immediately after Questions, has got herself in the wrong place at the wrong time and has had to go into the Chamber. It is a very straightforward amendment. It asks for information to be provided by the Defence Council at least a year in advance to all members of the Armed Forces, giving them information about the scheme, how it will operate, how to apply and what alternative forms of flexible working are available.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, when I spoke at Second Reading I indicated that I was supportive of the principle that the Bill seeks to enshrine. After all, who could argue against increased flexibility? But I did have a number of caveats and cautions. It seems crucial that whatever we do does not undermine the ethos that is essential to a successful fighting force. I raised a number of issues, not all of which have been dealt with to my satisfaction, but I set those to one side for the moment to focus in particular on Amendment 1.

At Second Reading, the noble Earl took me to task for using the term “flexible employment”. He pointed out to me that service personnel are not employees as such. He is of course quite right, although the waters are somewhat muddied when the MoD itself uses terms such as “new employment model”. Service men and women have always understood and accepted that they are liable to be called to duty at any time— 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. The Bill seeks to change that. In doing so, though, it introduces the term “part-time” and part-time is a concept which in the military has never been recognised for regular service. It implies something that is completely removed from the ethos that is essential to a fighting service.

We all know what the Bill is talking about. We all know that it does not intend to undermine that ethos. But we also know that Bills which become Acts can have unintended consequences, and this Bill has to be treated with a great degree of caution, in my view, because of the fundamental nature of the changes that it introduces. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, has already pointed out, the use of such terms as part-time is anathema to the military. Why use such a term when much more appropriate terms are there, ready to be employed? I therefore support very strongly Amendment 1.