Armed Forces Bill

I totally agree. The Ministry of Defence and the military have to realise that society has moved on. The idea that, in this day and age, people can investigate themselves and still have credibility, not only with parliamentarians but with the general public, is not acceptable. Unless the system is seen as independent, it will not help to put some of the accusations aside. Some wild accusations have been made against the armed forces, but some of the accusations are right, and some very serious accusations of assault and bullying have not been properly investigated. As I read the Bill, the main duties of the panel would be to investigate service complaints, but we have not yet seen the definition of a service complaint, what time limits would apply to such a complaint, or the circumstances in which an independent panel member would be appointed. However, it is clear that the Government have rejected the Defence Committee’s recommendation of independence. That saddens me. The Bill does not provide a mechanism or a method for dealing with complaints in what I—and, I think, most people—would call truly independent from the chain of command. Before the Bill goes any further, it is important that the definitions and other details should be published. That would be useful for the scrutiny that will take place over the coming months. That is important, because it would be helpful to try to put the issues related to Deepcut to bed. We called for retrospection in our report, because that is necessary to ensure that those issues are taken care of. More cases involving accusations about bullying leading to suicide are emerging. My hon. Friends may have seen this week’s Sunday Mirror, in which, under the headline ““Deepcut II””, there is an article that gives a real sense of questions to be asked about the case of two young recruits, Krystle Cookson and Michael Williams, both of whom committed suicide at the Royal School of Signals base in Blandford. Using the emotive term ““Deepcut II”” helps to make it clear that if we are to get satisfactory answers to some of the questions, the idea of the military investigating itself will not be acceptable to those young people’s parents, or to the many others who have already been mentioned. I hope that the Government will listen to the criticism, because I approach the idea of independence from the point of view that it would improve the Bill. It is also important to secure the public confidence that the system needs. If we go ahead as is now outlined in the Bill, an opportunity will have been missed, and there will not be the added confidence that the public need. Clause 371, which relates to the duration and renewal of service discipline legislation, has been mentioned by several Members. It restates the requirement for a five-yearly renewal of the Acts by primary legislation, but does not continue the current practice—already mentioned by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Moore), who speaks on behalf of the Liberal Democrats—of annual renewal by an Order in Council approved by Parliament. It is important that we be given an explanation of why the Government want to move to a five-yearly review. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton said, I cannot for the life of me think why that would be advantageous to the Government, or why Parliament should give up a historic right that has its roots way back in the 17th century. For the sake of public confidence in the scrutiny of disciplinary issues relating to our armed forces, this Parliament must have a say, and an opportunity at least once a year to examine the regulations and raise any concerns that it may have. I do not accept that the business managers are so cramped that that has to be dropped off the agenda through lack of parliamentary time. It is so important that parliamentary time should be made for it. I welcome the Bill, but I hope that the Government do not miss the great opportunity that they now have to put back the confidence and pride in our armed forces that we should all have. I hope that we can ensure that if cases similar to Deepcut and others arise in future, the independent process that would investigate them would not leave us in the terrible situation that we are in now, with slurs being made against our armed forces, parents and loved ones feeling that they do not have answers to their questions and the general idea that there is something to hide. If we had a proper independent process, a lot of those issues could have been raised within it, rather than having a dripping tap of allegations being made—weekly, it seems—about other horrendous cases affecting our armed forces.