Draft Service Police (Complaints etc.) Regulations 2023

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 General Committees

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his thorough introduction of this draft SI. The Opposition do not intend to divide the Committee, but I have a number of questions to pose to him.

All in Committee agree that our service personnel embody the very best of British. They exemplify the highest standards in our society, and we rightly expect our service police to uphold those same values, but when complaints are made against the service police, considerable flaws in the service police complaints process become apparent. As highlighted by the Lyons review, the current process lacks independence from the Ministry of Defence and its scope is too narrow.

Our armed forces personnel need to feel confident that, in return for carrying out their duty to keep our nation safe, they will in turn be looked after by the service police force that is there to protect them and to uphold high standards. Our service personnel also need to know that when service police officers fall short of that mark, a strong system is in place to investigate properly officers who are the subject of a complaint, and that they will be held to account if they have failed in their duties.

Broadly, therefore, we welcome the implementation of a new independent service police complaints process, and Labour will support today’s draft legislation, but clarification is needed and I have a number of questions. Will the new body be adequately resourced to carry out its functions? The Minister says that he is not expecting too many cases to cross its desk, but I would be grateful if he set out whether sufficient resourcing is allocated, or whether the resources will come from existing budgets. There are also wider concerns about whether the new complaints process is wide enough in scope, and whether it will inherit some of the issues afflicting the current civilian police complaints system.

Labour welcomes the appointment of Ms Margaret Obi as the Service Police Complaints Commissioner, but the Government must provide assurances that the new independent niche body she oversees will be sufficiently resourced. We know that it will be funded by the MOD, but since there is to be a £2 billion real-terms cut in day-to-day spending for 2024-25, and since the extra money secured in last week’s Budget applies only to the nuclear programme and replenishing stockpiles, can the Minister say what the new body’s annual budget will be?

Will the funding for the new complaints system come out of the MOD’s existing budget, and existing service police costs, or will additional resources be applied? Will staff in the new complaints system be permanently working in the new unit, or will they be on secondment, as we discussed in a previous statutory instrument on policing in our armed forces? Will staff need additional resources to carry out the independent body’s functions? I am particularly looking at the training requirement to learn the necessary lessons, especially if we are to move service police complaints to the same level as complaints relating to civilian police forces. When is the new service police complaints process due to come into force? The SI mentions a date in June; will the Minister confirm that?

The Lyons review suggested that, even with a new independent body,

“investigations of serious crime and wrongdoing may not even reach double figures.”

It also stated that the caseload will depend on the scope of the system, who can access it, and what time limits are placed on it. New independent oversight of the service police is welcome but there are serious questions about service police misconduct when dealing with complaints in the armed forces. I hope those can be addressed through this new system. Also, from discussing a similar issue in a statutory instrument Committee a few months ago, we know of concerns that if cases remain very low in number, there will not be a sufficient volume going through the system for officers dealing with those cases to be adequately trained and familiar with the procedures. As the Minister is expecting only a very small number of cases, especially death and serious injury matters, will he set out how those working in that space will deal with a sufficient volume of cases to be trained to and to perform at a high standard? There were questions about whether that was appropriate the last time we met to discuss a related measure.

We also know that, in recent years, an epidemic of bullying and sexual harassment in our armed forces has been allowed to fester, with service police investigations into sexual offences increasing by a third since 2019. Although there are wider questions about the effectiveness of the military court martial system—the Minister will be aware that Labour has repeatedly called for the most serious crimes to be tried in civilian courts to improve access to justice for service personnel—it is crucial that service police officers and the service police force as a whole take more responsibility for creating a culture that roots out bad behaviour, and that they are held to account if they do not do so.

Given the statement that the Home Secretary has just made in the Commons regarding the Casey review, what steps is the Minister taking, as the Minister with oversight of policing in our armed forces, to see what lessons can be applied? Although that report looks at the Metropolitan police, I do not believe the Metropolitan police are alone in having these issues. I would be grateful if the Minister set out his plan to review the Casey report and apply any learnings to the MOD.

In the guidance on today’s statutory instrument, the Minister says that the draft regulations provide for a complaints system similar to the system applied to the civilian police in England and Wales. I draw his attention to concerns about failings in the civilian police complaints system, which we cannot afford to transfer to the service police system. For example, Labour is clear that officers of any kind who are accused of rape and domestic abuse should be suspended while their case is investigated. I realise that that deals with the appeal against the investigating officers, but it is important to put that on the record.

Regulation 19 deals with withdrawn complaints. With the aim of ensuring high levels of probity, if a complaint is made against a service police officer and subsequently withdrawn, can that be one of the items that is reported to Parliament? There is concern that an organisation with a high level of hierarchy and orders to be followed may place barriers in the way of people seeking justice who have been failed by the chain of command or the justice system. If there is a point where complaints are made and subsequently withdrawn, may we have an understanding of how many cases are involved? I do not expect to see signs of a conspiracy, but we need to make sure that there are no barriers in the system, and the culture that goes along with it, to someone coming forward with a complaint about their experiences.

Last year, the Home Affairs Committee looked into police complaints procedures and concluded that there are still serious concerns about delays to investigations due to the complexity of language and processes. The Minister said that he has mapped the civilian language over to this SI. How will the application of the same processes and language apply in an armed forces context compared with the civilian context? We do not want to arrive at a place where we are unable to effectively hold service police to account because of unwarranted bureaucratic language and processes, which have been cited as holding back justice in civilian police forces.

Will the Minister provide some much-needed detail about the differences between the civilian complaints regime and the new service police complaints system? He briefly touched on that point in his remarks. Paragraph 7.7 of the explanatory memorandum states that the key difference will be

“the lack of accelerated procedures for members of the Armed Forces”

in internal disciplinary procedures, to reflect the service context. We all understand that service life is different from civilian life, but will the Minister set out what is meant by a lack of accelerated procedures for members of the armed forces? Surely there is merit in having complaints dealt with swiftly. If the issue is personnel who are involved being deployed, I would be grateful if the Minister set that out.

I have had quite a lot of dealings with the Independent Office for Police Conduct in relation to the Keyham shooting in the patch I represent, and I have been impressed by the IOPC’s working. If the Minister’s intends to carry over a similar type of work to service policing, that is a good move. It is a really important sign that we need to move military justice to the same thresholds and standards that we expect in civilian justice.

On that basis, Labour will not oppose the regulations, but I want to pick up on the Minister’s comments about the super-complaints body. When that is assessed, will there be a consultation, or will the process just be applied and a decision made by Ministers? Does it need to be approved through a statutory instrument process? Could he set that out clearly?

The Minister said that historical matters will not initially be dealt with. I understand the importance of drawing a clear line between what cases are dealt with and what are not, but I am not certain about the “not initially” part of what he said. Will he clarify whether that will be a task for the new commissioner in due course, or whether that is a decision for Ministers?

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester raised a very fair point about the application of this legislation to Gibraltar. As the Minister knows, I often raise questions about territorial extent. Unlike many SIs that we have dealt with recently, it is good to see that overseas territories and some Crown dependencies are included in these draft regulations. However, if we continue to miss out Gibraltar, we are creating a situation where UK service personnel in Gibraltar—not just the Gibraltar regiment, but UK service personnel based in Gibraltar—have a sub-optimal level of justice and application of modern legislation. Is there a piece of work under way in the MOD to collate all the pieces of legislation where Gibraltar has been excluded so that we can make sure to use the opportunity of the next Armed Forces Bill, whenever that may come, to correct a growing level of disservice to armed forces personnel who are based in Gibraltar?