Armed Forces Bill

I know the Armed Forces Bill as an old friend, having taken it through its Committee stages with a number of colleagues. In rising to speak from the Back Benches, I feel a little like the ghost of Christmas past. Let me begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on his appointment. I know that he will do an excellent job. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will agree that having come into the job at such short notice he has done a very good job during today’s debate. While I pass on the baton of Veterans Minister with considerable regret, I am happy to hand over to my hon. Friend some of the work in the red boxes. I am grateful to him and to other Members for their kind comments about my time as Minister, particularly so far as this Bill is concerned. I am conscious that the first contribution from a recently retired Minister may at times be an uncomfortable experience for those on the Front Bench, but I can put my hon. Friends at ease. I will enjoy my freedom from the security of collective responsibility by making it plain that I wholeheartedly support the Bill. With the strategic defence review in 1998, the Government recognised that we needed a single system of service law for today’s armed forces. Our forces increasingly train and operate together, and they need a modern system of justice that reflects that. The Bill is the result of years of hard and dedicated work, and the services themselves have been at the centre of its development. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Defence said on Second Reading that this is a Bill that has at its centre the armed forces themselves. In that sense, it is a Bill for the armed forces. It has their full support, primarily because it meets their needs in a way that has been absent for some time. I turn to the way in which the Bill has been handled, as referred to by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth). I should like to add my thanks to the Bill team for their professional and dedicated support. When I was Minister, I knew at first hand that they did a tremendous job and that that was not often recognised enough. The special Select Committee procedure is a regular feature of the quinquennial review of service discipline. As has been demonstrated, it has been an outstandingly successful arrangement for the House. The evidence taken by the Committee, in what we might term the Select Committee stage, gave Members the opportunity better to understand the purposes behind the Bill. The combination of that expert testimony and line-by-line scrutiny in Committee means that this Bill has been considered in a far greater depth than many others. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), who chaired the Committee with his customary blend of patience and purpose. He was ably assisted by the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), who has served on several special Select Committees considering service legislation. Indeed, his experience led me at one stage to consider asking him to join the Bill team, because I thought that he would make a considerable contribution. I join with all Members in wishing him a speedy recovery and return to the House. In Committee and in the early debates in the House and today, as well as in the media, I fear that we have heard a great deal of nonsense about our armed forces being under some sort of legal siege that is affecting the chain of command and blighting operational effectiveness. To me, ““legal siege”” is a loose, vague, woolly and wholly misleading term. As a concept it lacks intellectual rigour, and as a description it lacks a grounding in fact. I do not mean to say that certain perceptions do not exist in some quarters, although when reading some of the newspaper reports I am reminded of Nye Bevan, who, when asked whether he read the newspapers, said that of course he did because it was his one continuous source of fiction. I consider the so-called legal siege to be a mirage. The former Chief of the Defence Staff, the noble and gallant Lord Boyce, who has been much quoted today, could not give a single real example of how this intangible concept is supposedly affecting operational effectiveness. During the Committee stage, when asked by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), the then Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Michael Walker, gave the same reply:"““If you ask me to give you a physical concrete example, I cannot.””" I would remind Members of some wise words that we heard in the Committee’s hearings, which I uttered earlier:"““I am sure that we all could play a better role in trying to dampen down this particular worry, and people like myself who are standing up and speaking in the House of Lords debates and so forth perhaps need to re-look at how we are saying things in order not to fuel anxieties of this nature.””" Those were the words of Admiral Lord Boyce himself, and I was grateful for his candour when he gave us that evidence in Committee. Perception stems from what is said in this place and in the press. If it is said often enough, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hon. Members—of this House and the other place—should be more temperate in their comments, otherwise they feed a perception that undermines the morale of our forces. We had much discussion in Standing Committee and this evening on the role of commanding officer. I should like to conclude by making it plain that the Bill has the support of forces and that the changes that we are making to the role of the commanding officer will be supported and welcomed. Indeed, many of our forces have welcomed the removal of the power to dismiss serious charges. I have a high regard for General Sir Mike Jackson, and he put it perfectly:"““As far as the Army is concerned, I would echo the fundamental place of the Commanding Officer in holding good order and military discipline and we are content that the new Bill secures that position. There have been changes but they are not changes which we think in any way are significantly detrimental to that pole position which we would wish the Commanding Officer to hold.””" I subscribe to his remarks. When we considered harmonising the powers of commanding officers, naval captains had perhaps most to lose. It was once said of the Navy in Nelson’s time that, on board ship, the captain was second only to God, and that was only a matter of seniority. The Bill updates powers in the age of e-mail and satellite communications, and the then First Sea Lord made it clear when he gave evidence to our Committee that he was entirely happy with what has been retained. The changes in the Bill allow commanding officers to get on with what they do best: commanding, training and looking after the men and women under their command. As I said on Second Reading, we place an enormous responsibility on the shoulders of our servicemen and women. We ask them to operate in circumstances that are often difficult, unpredictable and dangerous. We ask them to perform tasks that have no parallel in the civilian world. When young men and women sign on to serve in our armed forces, they know that they may face circumstances in which they put their lives on the line. That does not happen to those who join Barclays bank or Tesco. It is the peculiar and special position of those who join our armed forces. Sometimes, they make the ultimate sacrifice. We have again recently mourned the deaths of our young servicemen and women in Iraq. Parliament and the armed forces demand high standards of behaviour from our forces, whether overseas on operations or training at home. Discipline is essential and service law is essential to enforce it. Ultimately we all want an effective and efficient fighting force. There is no doubt that we need a separate system of law for the armed forces and that it needs to reflect the increasingly joint nature of their work. The Bill delivers that. The forces want the measure. It will provide strong legislation for service discipline in the 21st century. I hope that it will have the wholehearted support of the other place and that it will soon be on the statute book.