Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the House for allowing me to de-group this amendment, and I listened carefully to the Minister’s comments in response to the previous grouping. For the avoidance of doubt I shall state publicly that I will not attempt to divide the House at this stage and I am respecting the agreement made through the usual channels. That is not to underestimate the strength of feeling over inquests and their operation. My amendment would cover those currently serving who have died in action or on other aspects of active service; those who have died in training, who sadly constitute a significant number each year; and previous serving personnel who have now left the services but whose death for whatever reason is referred to a coroner. The Minister spoke of the relevance of the report to the issues of the day, and indeed about year-to-year variation in what may be a priority. I suggest that death is always relevant and will always remain a priority with those who have been bereaved, however small or large the numbers are. The amendment will never—one scarcely uses the word ““never””—fall from being pertinent year on year. My amendment does not incur additional expenditure, because the data are being collected and collated anyway and will be brought together in the annual report. There are data on the epidemiology of the pattern of deaths and on post-mortem findings. There are variations in verdicts, particularly narrative verdicts, and there would be much merit in pooling all those together. I am not asking for new and additional work, other than the work that is being collected. However, by putting it all together in one place, there will be an annual report which I suggest year on year could become quite an important historic document for monitoring trends and patterns, and for making sure that vigilance does not drop back over time. I suggest that, in the absence of a chief coroner, this is particularly needed. It has strong support from the Royal British Legion, which, as the House knows, has felt very strongly about the conduct of inquests. The health report aspects certainly will capture much of the research that is going on, and will capture the psychological and psychiatric sequelae where those data are collected as well as physical problems. The importance of research has already been alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, but it will not capture those who fall outside such monitoring. The one thing that will be caught is their deaths, because death is a universal end-point. The amendment is about the ““operation of inquests””, not the ““conduct of inquests””. Therefore, it is very broad and allows that freedom to which the Minister referred in needing to report on the pertinent issues of the day. Currently, the quarterly ministerial statements on military inquests are produced and are providing very important data. They are extremely interesting and are especially interesting if read one after another. However, I suggest that they will not always be produced. When we are no longer in the current theatres of war, it is much more than likely—I would have thought it is inevitable—that they will no longer be produced. There will be a decision that they are no longer needed. It would be very sad if they were to fall altogether, whereas an annual report could be incorporated into the report we are discussing today. The Defence Inquest Unit of the Ministry of Defence provides coroners in the civilian world with a summary of incidents where people have died on active service, and suggests who to call as witnesses, but respects the independence of the coroners. It is there to try to demystify military inquests and I understand that it is now going to be working with the procurator fiscal in Scotland. There has been an improvement in the conduct of inquests: there was a waiting time of 17 months before 2005, but that has fallen to 11 months in 2009 and there is an aim to get it down to nine months. The problem, however, has only just improved and we need to ensure that it does not slip back, that the pressure that has been mounted does not ease up when the current theatres of war are no longer in play and that ex-service personnel are respected just as current service personnel are. Why is it important to look at the operation of inquests? It is because there is wide variation in coroners. We know that there are some excellent coroners but there are a series of complaints against some coroners. Post-mortems on servicemen are all done in Oxford, but that is not where ex-servicemen’s post-mortems are done. Much has been learned from the post-mortems in Oxford: they have actually altered the way acute trauma is dealt with—on the battlefield, and now in civilian life by our accident and emergency and first-response teams. The information is invaluable. There has been talk about coroners attending training, but sadly not all coroners do because it is not mandatory for them. I know there have been two-day training events put on in Salisbury Plain—the first attended by 35 coroners, the second by 40 coroners. Sadly, that is not all the coroners who could have gone and benefited from it. The experience of relatives when a person dies after service can be lamentable. I described that in Committee, so I will not go back over that ground as we are now on Report. The Armed Forces covenant has been said to cover this issue, but it says: "““Bereaved families should receive assistance commensurate with the loss that they have suffered, including help during the vital but difficult inquest process””." That refers to the help and support for the families, not to the other issues around the way that an inquest occurs and is conducted. When the Minister responded in Committee, he recognised that inquests were an important element of the Armed Forces covenant. However, the wording in the covenant is inadequate to deal with the issues that I have tried to highlight; it does not deal adequately with all aspects of inquests. That is why I feel strongly that the matter must be covered in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has already dealt in detail with a lot of the criticisms of the current process, so I will not reiterate them. However, we must remember the long-term sequelae suffered by those who have been in a theatre of war and who have been injured. They may have a long-term disability, they may have been exposed to toxic substances, or they may have other co-morbidities that are fatal because the original wounds have weakened them. There are deaths among those who are deeply traumatised and who develop mental health problems later in life—sometimes very much later. Ex-service personnel in civilian life go to their GP like everybody else. The problem is that many GPs will see only one severely wounded or traumatised ex-serviceperson in their whole working life. The Royal College of General Practitioners has established a veterans training pack. Of course, it is taken up by GPs who have a particular interest in the field and who work in areas where there is a high number of military personnel—but it does not capture everybody. The problem often is that the service personnel who are at highest risk are those who are emotionally isolated and who present to clinical services that do not understand the long-term sequelae of what has happened previously. The final time to pick up the fact that they were serving their country is at the time of their death. This would be at the time an inquest is held. It is very important that, just as we do not forget our servicemen’s health, education and welfare, neither should we forget them in death. Nor should we forget the information that their death will provide both to future serving personnel and to the rest of the population. I beg to move.