My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 5. In the late 1980s, I was dragged from my destroyer by the First Sea Lord and tasked with
doing a study into whether women should serve on the front line at sea. Being an ambitious officer, I went to see the First Sea Lord and asked him what result he wanted from that study—but he told me that I was to do a proper study. I spent six months doing it, and I learned a great deal. At the end of it, I concluded that women could serve in all jobs at sea, that there was no reason why they could not do that on the front line and that it was in the interests of the Navy. I thought that that would ruin my career—my wife said that I could run a well woman clinic if things went really wrong —but in fact it did not affect my career that badly.
What I failed to understand was the level of sexual predation that might result from this. I did talk with other navies around the world but I have say that I did not talk to the Army; it was all naval. I have been really quite shocked by the level of sexual predation which one is aware of now. It is necessary to expose what is happening to make it clear to people that things have to change. It is only by laying down the cases that have happened that this will be thrown into the public eye and the eye of the military, and then action can be taken. I am not so convinced by Amendment 6, but Amendment 5 makes a lot of sense.