Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-21
Topic: Defense
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend says that he cannot see why the Government are pursuing this, but the director general of the Royal British Legion could. When he spoke to the Public Bill Committee, he said: "I think it is protecting the MOD, rather than the service personnel"––[Official Report, Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Public Bill Committee, 8 October 2020; c. 86, Q163.] He is right. When my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) pressed him and asked whether it would breach the armed forces covenant in his view, he said: "That is what we think, yes."––[Official Report, Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Public Bill Committee, 8 October 2020; c. 84, Q155.] I turn to the last of the four main amendments at hand today, Lords amendment 5, which was moved in the other place by Lord Dannatt and is on the duty of care. One of the things that struck me most when talking to troops and their families who have been through the trauma of these long-running investigations is that they felt cut adrift—cut adrift from their chain of command and from the Ministry of Defence. The Public Bill Committee heard really clearly from Major Campbell. He gave dramatic evidence, and I am sure that the Minister has followed this; in fact, he was on the Committee, so he will have been there. When Major Campbell was asked what support the MOD gave him, he simply replied: "there was none." Of course, for veterans, it is even worse. For them, there is nothing—not even the chain of command—there for them. Although some of the previous decisions that the Government have taken—for instance, to cover the legal costs of those involved in the Iraq Historic Allegations Team investigations—were welcome, there should be and there can be a higher standard to reach for us in this regard When Lord Dannatt moved this amendment successfully in the Lords, he said: "Defence priorities change; the fortunes of military charities fluctuate; Ministers come and go; but the law does not change. Amendment 14 would bring into law the good ideas and intentions of well-meaning Ministers and officials with whom we are currently united in common cause but who are strangely reluctant to enshrine the fruits of their endeavours in a Bill which will become an Act of Parliament and thus part of our law—a law to protect our people for all time from vexatious investigations and prosecutions."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 April 2021; Vol. 811, c. 1244.] The former Veterans Minister wrote in his resignation letter last night: "I remain genuinely appalled by the experiences of some of the Nation's finest people who have served in the Armed Forces." I say to the Minister, we can do better than this duty of care, particularly when the MOD has forces personnel and veterans subject to investigation or prosecution. I hope he will now accept this, so that we can establish a new duty of care standard and that legal, pastoral and mental health support is made available as a matter of course and a matter of duty by the MOD for those who are put under pressure and under investigation or prosecution I am coming to my conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker. We are now legislating for the future. The Bill is not a framework that is fit for that future point when we must again commit our forces to conflict overseas. The Government are still getting important parts of the Bill badly wrong. I continue to believe strongly that, ultimately, the Government, Labour and the armed forces all want the same thing: we want to protect British troops and we want to protect British values. That is not, and should not be, a matter of party politics I end today as I ended our debates on Report back in November by saying this: it is late, but it is still not too late for Ministers to think again about the best way both to protect service personnel from vexatious litigation and to ensure that those who do commit serious crimes on operations abroad are properly prosecuted and punished. I urge the Minister and the Government to do just that in the very final stages of this Bill in Parliament.