Armed Forces Bill

Leo Docherty Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and hear such welcome contributions from the right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken so far. This Bill is something that is close to my heart, as a former Ulster Defence Regiment and Territorial Army soldier, and as an elected representative who has seen the way in which some of our troops have fared after service. I will make some comments in relation to the regular force: the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) referred to recruitment issues, which I also mentioned last time we spoke on this topic in the House, and I want to reiterate some of those comments if I can.

I believe that we must improve recruitment and retention. Each time numbers are cut, morale is dealt a blow, recruiting drops, and the three services become undermanned, which has a detrimental effect on those who are serving and those who maybe would wish to. I make these comments gracefully and try to do so in a respectful fashion, but we have two aircraft carriers, yet we only have crew for one. We have fewer tanks than most third-world countries, and we have a few highly complex fighter jets, but little ability to conduct expeditionary air warfare other than a reliance on Cyprus as a base. Future investment must be about growing the capability and capacity of the regular force. I know that the Minister is keen to do that, and we are keen that he should be supported in doing so, from both the Opposition side of the House and his own side.

If our regular forces can no longer punch at or above our new weight as an independent post-Brexit global player, I believe that we must reinvest in soft power. The last debate we had, which was on overseas aid, was about soft power: how we use it better to influence and help countries in which the potential for terrorism and extremism abounds, and how we get a reasonable level of GDP boost in those countries to ensure we can still bring some influence to bear in places where we cannot put boots on the ground, or indeed jets in the air.

When it comes to the reserve forces, I make a plea to the Minister directly: I know that he is interested in this matter and will wish to respond, but we continue to believe that Northern Ireland could make greater contributions to the whole force concept through greater opportunities in the reserve forces. Again, I urge the Minister to review the current reserve forces footprint in Northern Ireland, and consider expanding it to recruit a greater number of reservists from a wider footprint.

For example, Enniskillen uniquely gives its name to two very fine British Army regiments, the Inniskilling Dragoons and the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, both formed in the Williamite wars of the 1690s to defend the town against Jacobite rebels. Today, that loyal town is only being asked to provide a few medics and an infantry company. Northern Ireland is able to, and wants to, provide more reservists, so how can we make that happen? This comes back to the issue of recruitment, which the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross referred to and which I want to speak about today, particularly in relation to Northern Ireland. May I remind the Minister, hon. and gallant Member that he is, that at the height of the cold war and in the midst of the so-called troubles there were 11 UDR battalions, two TA infantry battalions, an artillery regiment—which I belonged to as a part-time soldier—a signal regiment, an engineer regiment, logistics regiments, medical regiments, yeomanry regiments, military police and so on? Today, we are being asked for a fraction of that, yet the world is still a dangerous place. If we have the potential to recruit in Northern Ireland, we should be taking every step and every action to make sure that happens.

Very quickly, I will turn to veterans. I put on record the work of Danny Kinahan, the Northern Ireland veterans commissioner, and thank him for the impact that that post will no doubt have in due course. However, for some veterans in Northern Ireland, there is still precious little evidence of the impact of the armed forces covenant, or of other initiatives for veterans such as rail cards, guaranteed interview schemes and the veterans ID card. May I remind the Minister that this is a far cry from the desire to make the UK the best place in the world to be a veteran?

Respectfully, I make the point that Westminster can impose abortion laws and Irish language Acts from Westminster, but there is a real lack of pressure from London on Belfast when it comes to supporting our veterans. I would love to see more emphasis put on that if at all possible. I remain concerned about the scrutiny of the delivery outputs that flow from the armed forces covenant, so can the Minister be sure that all the promised action is being taken so that veterans are being housed, getting treatment with the priority they need, getting access to jobs and training, being supported by local and regional councils, and getting the recognition they are due?

Who are the eyes and ears at local and regional levels that are ensuring that all that can be done is being done? I urge the Minister to increase the assistance and get on with empowering the Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees in order that they can fulfil their remit of ensuring that the armed forces covenant is being delivered across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in its entirety.

I appreciate the sentiment behind new clause 4, to which the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) referred, regarding the duty of care on mental health. That is vital, and never has it been more important. I work closely with a charity in Northern Ireland called Beyond the Battlefield, which provides counselling, as well as practical aid for veterans. It has recently leased a property in my constituency, in the village of Portavogie, which provides en suite accommodation for 10 people. The intention is to use it as a respite facility for veterans from throughout the Province. It will be the first of its kind in the whole of the Province, and after the closure of the Royal British Legion facility in Portrush we will have dedicated facilities available for our veterans.

This venue will provide space for individual reflection, as well as having communal rooms and therapy areas. The charity has fundraised and done so much work, and there is much more to be done with this facility—it has been targeted by vandals in the past, so there is some refurbishment work to do. I know that the Minister will be keen to hear more, and I will be anxious to see how the MOD can sow into this facility that is designed to pick up the slack left by the Department. On behalf of Beyond the Battlefield, I extend an invitation to the Minister to visit when the refurbishment is completed, as we would be very pleased to have him over for that purpose. If he is able to do so at a time convenient for him and us, we will do that.

Another clause that has struck me is that on the armed forces federation. The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) has referred to this regularly. It is one of the subjects he never misses on, and he did not miss on it today either. There is a principle at stake there that should be considered. I work with a wonderful charity called SSAFA—the armed forces charity, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association. It is probably known to everybody in this House, and it is often called on to step into scenarios that an armed forces federation would be designed to step into. If this Bill is aimed at addressing the years of neglect, this is an important aspect of it. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) for the work he has put into this Armed Forces Bill, and I thank him for it. Our party will be supporting amendments 1 and 2 if they are put to a vote.

I conclude by saying that the Bill has many pros and many cons, one of which is that soldiers who served in Northern Ireland are treated differently. That must be made right. I know the Minister wishes to do that, and it would be good to hear in his response that that will be the case. I anxiously await the Government holding to their word to ensure that every service personnel member, regardless of where they served, deserves the same treatment. I still believe we miss out on this. This Bill is to be welcomed, but improvements can and must still happen. I look forward to hearing from the Government, and from the Minister in particular, whom I look upon as a friend, as to whether these new clauses and amendments which would enhance the Bill will be acceptable.

[The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions, particularly the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock); I am grateful for her sincere and constructive tone. I think the whole House is united in our desire to support our armed forces, and I am confident that the Bill delivers for our armed forces. It renews the Armed Forces Act 2006, it improves the service justice system, and it delivers on the Government’s commitment to further enshrine the armed forces covenant in law.

I turn first to new clause 1. As I said in Committee, the Government take very seriously our duty of care for service personnel and veterans under investigation. This amendment was debated at length in the other place during the passage of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021. Our servicepeople are entitled to receive comprehensive legal support, and a full range of welfare and mental health support is offered to all our people, as laid out in the Defence Secretary’s written ministerial statement of 13 April 2021. We have made clear our intent to provide a gold standard of care, and we will not deviate from that.

We resist the new clause because a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate. People have different needs, and we want to ensure bespoke provision—the right support at the right time. Furthermore, the difficulties of drafting such a duty of care would inevitably mean the involvement of the courts and additional litigation.

Turning to new clause 2, I am pleased to remind the House that the Government accept entirely that the historical policy prohibiting homosexuality in the armed forces was absolutely wrong, and there was historic injustice suffered by members of the LGBT+ community as a consequence. We are committed entirely to addressing that with urgency and humility, and our priority now is to understand the full impact of the pre-millennium ban. We are committed to finding an appropriate mechanism to address this injustice, but we resist the new clause because it may complicate or constrain the work already under way.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

As I said in my contribution, I do not doubt the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to righting this wrong, but he is going to come up against a lot of resistance from his Department when it comes to issues around compensation in terms of pensions and everything else. I just stress that he must push back, and push back hard.

[Leo Docherty]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s encouragement. I hear it, and I reassure him that we will address this matter with absolute resolve. It will be at the heart of the veterans strategy, which I will announce this winter.

Turning to new clause 3, let me reassure the House that the interests of armed forces personnel are already represented and protected through a range of mechanisms, including the Service Complaints Ombudsman, the pay review bodies, the annual continuous attitude survey, and more than 50 diversity networks operating within Defence at various levels, run mostly by volunteer members, with senior officer advocates and champions—and, lastly but most importantly, there is the chain of command. We therefore resist the new clause.

I turn to new clause 4. In June 2021, the annual UK armed forces mental health bulletin showed that the overall rate of mental ill health is actually lower among service personnel than in the general population, but of course we are never complacent. We are constantly striving to improve our mental healthcare support for service personnel and, indeed, veterans. We resist the new clause because it lacks utility and would merely add to the administrative burden of those seeking to support our service personnel. Indeed, a duty on the Secretary of State to report annually on healthcare provision already exists as part of the armed forces covenant.

Amendment 1 would give the Attorney General the role of deciding whether the most serious crimes are prosecuted in the service courts. We have already considered this issue carefully as a recommendation of the Lyons review, but we believe that enhancing the prosecutors protocol is the most effective way to improve decisions on concurrent jurisdiction, because it allows decisions to be made early on, by independent prosecutors who have close working relationships with civilian and service police.

If the AG had to give consent, the process would be slower. The AG would effectively be asked to endorse decisions that had been made very early in an investigation, and it is hard to see what the AG would be adding. However, if the AG were to disagree with those earlier decisions and veto the trying of a case in the service justice system, there would be no easy way to transfer that case to the civilian system. That may have the undesired effect of making it difficult or impossible to prosecute the case in either system.

For that reason, we resist the amendment. We have a more pragmatic approach, because we want a workable, transparent and rigorous process for decisions on jurisdiction. We want cases to be heard in the right system, and we are confident that the service justice system is capable of dealing with all offences, whatever their seriousness and wherever they occur. We must bear in mind that the civilian prosecutor will always have the final say.

Turning to amendments 2 to 8, the covenant duty covers public bodies delivering healthcare, housing and education, because those are the key areas of concern for our armed forces community. We have ensured that the legislation can adapt to the needs of the armed forces community in future by making provision to allow the Government to widen the scope of the covenant by way of affirmative regulations. The Bill is evergreen, and if we need to expand it in future, we will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I asked specifically about recruitment in Northern Ireland and what we could do with reserve forces. Can I have an assurance that recruitment is necessary in Northern Ireland to fill the gap for soldiers who can help the British Army? If we can do it in Northern Ireland, let us make it happen.

[Leo Docherty]

I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that reassurance and put that on the record.

I thank the team of magnificently resolute and tenacious MOD civil servants in the Bill team, including Jayne Scheier, John Shivas, Caron Tassel, Tim Payne and Ben Bridge. I call on the House to reject the amendments. The armed forces always stand up for us; we must stand up for the armed forces, and I commend the Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Leo Docherty]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I want to reiterate my thanks to all hon. and right hon. Members for their thoughtful and constructive contributions today. I have been honoured to lead on this Bill that further enshrines the armed forces covenant into law. Ultimately, the Bill is for the armed forces, its serving personnel, veterans and their families, and I pay tribute to them for their bravery, stoicism and unflinching professionalism. We owe them an enormous debt of gratitude and this Bill is for them.

Our armed forces stand up for us and we must always stand up for them, and I commend this Bill to the House.