Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-08
Topic: Defense
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will start with a quotation. In the Ministry of Defence "there is one individual who is refusing to back down from the alleyway he has found himself in."—[Official Report, Commons, 6/12/21; col. 105.] Those are the words of the former Defence Minister Johnny Mercer, speaking in the debate in the other place on Monday night, on the amendment that we sent. He had earlier said: "Unfortunately, I was in the room when this decision was made. The evidence did not support the Secretary of State at the time and the evidence does not support the Secretary of State today. I cannot vote against the Lords amendment; it is not the right thing to do. Let me be clear: when the Secretary of State made that decision"— the issue that we are discussing today— "it was against the advice of the officials in the Department and against the advice of his Ministers."—[Official Report, Commons, 6/12/21; col. 104.] Unusually, the veil is lifted. Mr Mercer clearly identifies Mr Ben Wallace, the Secretary of State for Defence, as the man in the alleyway who, against the advice of his officials and his Ministers, persists in resisting this amendment. The Minister knows that I have always assumed that she would not, in her personal capacity, back the Government’s position—but now we have direct evidence from Mr Mercer, her former colleague I could leave it at that. I could await the storm of protest from victims whose cases are dismissed at court martial, who will come forward brandishing the Judge Lyons review and the recommendations, after considerable investigation, contained in Sarah Atherton’s report, published last July, to which I have referred at every stage—Sarah Atherton being the only Conservative Member of Parliament ever for Wrexham I doubt that the controversy when those protests are made will improve Mr Wallace’s or the Government’s standing with the public on the highly sensitive issue of sexual offences, but I have a deep concern that the reputation of the service justice system in the UK should not be sullied On Monday afternoon, I took part in an international forum organised by my friend Professor Eugene Fidell of Yale University, founder and former president of the National Institute of Military Justice in the United States. The forum meets regularly. On this occasion, we considered the way that sexual offences are dealt with in the Canadian military. This is a live issue in many jurisdictions. I had hoped that the United Kingdom would show the way, but I will remind the House of some of the UK statistics that were before the other place The Atherton committee interviewed many in search of evidence. Some 64% of the more than 4,000 service- women who submitted evidence to the committee stated that they had experienced sexual harassment, rape, bullying or discrimination while serving in the Armed Forces. Over the past five years, the average conviction rate for rape in civilian courts, from Ministry of Justice data, is 34%. Over the same five years, from using the data of the MoD, it is just 16%. The Minister told us that it was 15% for courts martial over the last six months. If you use Crown Prosecution Service data, the figures are even worse.