My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 7 and 8. Whether we like it or not, this is a fundamental debate about whether young people of 16 should be recruited into the Armed Forces. We have to respect that this is a serious debate and that both sides believe with conviction that their position is right. I respect the work of Child Soldiers International and I recognise the persuasive nature of the arguments it makes. It refers to issues of morality, welfare, economic and even diplomatic issues.
But there is the other side of the debate, which is that for many young people the great start they are given in life by being recruited at 16 provides them with opportunities that no other direction would give. They have the best start to adulthood. We believe that on balance, the argument for the opportunities provided is stronger than the argument that there should be no recruitment until the age of 18. We also believe that there should be the maximum practical protection for these young people.
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We debated this issue in Committee on 3 March and at col. 161 I asked the Minister a number of questions, most of which I had reasonable replies to, but I want to nail the issue of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I think that I was given an assurance that the Government accept it, but the Minister gave a much fuller reply in his letter of 20 April to my noble friend Lord Judd, and if the House will forgive me I will read some of it into the record.
“We are very careful to ensure that we comply with the relevant children’s legislation, and of course, the Ministry of Defence contributes to the Government’s periodic reports and provides evidence about the recruitment of under-18s to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly in relation to the Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict”.
There is a little more on this, but I shall go on to the next paragraph:
“I wish to reassure you that we take our duty of care for under-18s joining the Armed Forces extremely seriously; we recognise their care and welfare requires particular attention. Our safeguards are therefore robust, effective, and independently verified. For example: Ofsted inspect the training environment and use the ‘Common Inspection Framework’ (the national framework for inspection of post-16 education and training) to comment on the standard of initial training in the Armed Forces; and the MOD has an established Safeguarding Children Board (chaired by a person independent of the MOD) whose remit includes ensuring appropriate Safeguarding processes are in place for under-18s”.
I found the letter as a whole perhaps a little more reassuring than did my noble friend—until I came to the penultimate paragraph, where the noble Earl rejects reporting specifically on under 18 year-olds in the annual covenant report. He concludes the paragraph by saying:
“To report on under 18s as a specific group risks diluting the Government’s whole-hearted commitment to address disadvantage for every member of the Armed Forces”.
That is a sad response.
I would have quoted from the Committee debate we had on 6 September 2011 on the previous quinquennial Bill. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, gave at col. 29 the assurances that my noble friend Lord Judd has read out, and I felt that to be a specific assurance that there would be an annual report, probably using the vehicle of the covenant, on young people aged under 18.
I hope the Minister will reconsider his response in that letter with regard to reporting. We support the general spirit of Amendments 7 and 8 and we ask him to accept their spirit and direction. Since we basically support the recruitment of 16 year-olds, we believe that it would be inappropriate to divide the House on the issue. Nevertheless, we plead with the Minister to meet us half way by accepting the value of including a report on under-18s in the annual covenant report or some other appropriate document.