My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken this evening. I was going to say that it was a short debate but it was a proper-size debate, getting at a number of these issues. I thank the Minister for her thoughtful and comprehensive reply to the points raised and for addressing Amendment 14. She is right that in some ways there is no more than a cigarette paper between us. In my opening remarks, I said that I was pretty clear that we shared a common objective. The current area of disagreement is over how we march towards achieving success on this common objective.
Amendment 14 is about establishing a duty of care standard. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, for referring to this as a vital amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, also indicated the support of the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party. If we believe that we have a common objective in doing the right thing by our serving and veteran personnel, then I fail to see why clearly setting out a duty of care is causing so much difficulty for the Ministry of Defence.
In Committee, there was some discussion about whether this was the right Bill to address these issues. Many of us argued that, if we were to lose this Bill, it could be quite some time before there was another Bill that could address them. I argue strongly that we should maintain this Bill on its passage through Parliament.
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My noble and gallant friend Lord Houghton referred to the recent integrated review and the questions quite rightly thrown up about future warfare and the conduct of servicepeople within it. Undoubtedly, he is right to make reference to that. But I feel his comments and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, could be taken a step further to argue that we should kill this Bill and hope for another one that could better achieve the objective, which would be a reasonable argument. But as far as I am concerned, it is capped by the argument that we have a Bill and that we should make the best of it and try and achieve what we can in terms of a better duty of care to our people.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulks—one of the few speakers who did not speak in a content manner about any of the amendments that have been lodged and discussed this afternoon, for which I congratulate his courage—did make a reference that he thought this was a probing amendment. Yes, to an extent, it is a probing amendment, and when you probe, and find weakness, you are minded to attack, which is why I recognise the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, when he referred to the 120 years of service of the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup and Lord Boyce, and myself, each former heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force. But if you are going to mount an attack, it best comes when there is some leadership to force the issue. That is what we are going to do this evening.
The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, made reasonable reference to the fact that the Armed Forces Bill going through Parliament might be a better mechanism for taking these issues forward. She may well be right, but we are currently debating amendments to the overseas operations Bill, and subsequently we will be discussing the Armed Forces Bill.
Because I believe passionately that we should be standing up for our servicepeople and veterans, I believe we should be setting out a clear duty of care. Many of the things I would expect to see in that duty of care are not novel; many of them are swept up in the issues being discussed in this Bill, not least Amendment 6, which we debated successfully this afternoon. In a sense, that duty of care will be an amalgamation—a compendium, if you like—of things a caring employer should gather together in the best interests of its employees.
Finally, there has been some reference to Northern Ireland. In an ideal world, this duty of care would not just extend to operations overseas but address some of the issues relating to Northern Ireland, which for many people are still extraordinarily sore.
For all these reasons, I wish to test the opinion of the House. I believe passionately that we should set out a duty of care and, should we not succeed in establishing such a duty of care through the passage of this Bill, I am confident that my colleagues and I will return to these issues in the context of the Armed Forces Bill when it comes to your Lordships' House. I wish to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 14.