EMMA LEWELL-BUCK: Fighting Bill that puts armed forces at a disadvantage

I was a member of the Public Bill Committee who examined the Bill line by line. Along with Labour colleagues I worked hard to amend it so that it achieved the aims it set out to.

Sadly, with staggering arrogance the Minister for Defence People and Veterans not only ignored our suggestions, but ignored the wide range of experts, charities, and representative groups including the Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces and the Royal British Legion who expressed deep concerns about this legislation.

The Bills central aim is one that no decent minded person would disagree with: providing greater legal protections to Armed Forces personnel and veterans serving on military operations overseas in the wake of baseless allegations and legal claims arising from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet the legislation as drafted not only does the opposite but actually puts our forces and veterans at a disadvantage, denies them support, does nothing to stop flawed and repeated investigations, gives them less rights than other civilians including prisoners, breaches the Armed Forces Covenant and risks them being put on trial before the International Criminal Court.

One of this terrible Bills’ central planks is the introduction of a civil litigation longstop which places a maximum time limit of six years for a claimant or their bereaved families to bring civil claims for injury or death against the Ministry of Defence in connection with overseas operations. PTSD or hearing loss will most definitely fall out of that time frame.

This means that the MoD will not be held accountable for violations of soldiers’ and civilians’ rights, yet the largest proportion of claims made against the MoD are claims of negligence and of breaches of the MoD’s duty of care towards its soldiers. Between 2014 and 2019, the available data shows that such claims amounted to more than 75% of all claims.

This will only benefit the Ministry of Defence, and yet the MoD is the defendant in all those claims. This is a clear conflict. The Minister and the Department have created legislation that protects them from legitimate legal claims to the detriment of our forces and veterans.

The Government’s own impact assessment shows that at a minimum 19 injured or bereaved members of the forces community who made claims from operations in Afghanistan and Iraq would have been blocked had this legislation been in place. Even one member of our brave forces being blocked from a legitimate claim is unacceptable. There is simply no justification for introducing a time limit where one currently doesn’t exist.

I voted against this Bill, because I will never vote in a way that would cause harm to our forces and veterans. As we approach Remembrance Day, I am dismayed that the Government benches ploughed ahead with grossly disadvantaging those whom we owe so much.