Orders of the Day — Armed Forces (Parliamentary Approval for Participation in Armed Conflict) Bill — Order for Second Reading read. — [Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:07 pm on 21 October 2005.

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Photo of Siobhain McDonagh Siobhain McDonagh Labour, Mitcham and Morden 1:07, 21 October 2005

The hon. Gentleman has said a great deal, and I want to give other hon. Members an opportunity to join in.

What message would that have sent out to all the men and women who are so brave and have to go through what Alf had gone through?

Vince Romagnuolo joined the RAF in 1977 and spent nearly seven years working for the tactical communications unit, which worked closely with Harrier jets and helicopters to provide landing strips in battle zones such as the Falklands. Those enabled the air force to provide its air cover for our troops in any action and gave the flexibility needed on a modern battlefield. Vince was mainly based in Brize Norton and Germany when the cold war was raging—a time when we had powerful enemies who would very much enjoy knowing more about our military plans. Vince is a strong Labour party supporter. He believes that men and women in the forces might be put in danger if every action had to have a detailed substantive parliamentary vote and the military lost some of its flexibility to make decisions.

Vince said: "We need clear leadership, and I am happy for this to come through the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. It's good to have broad parliamentary approval, but it would be destabilising to the troops if it was not clear who was in charge. It would sow uncertainty in people's minds and could undermine the chain of command." Worst of all, he was worried that troops would feel less safe if their role was not clear. He said: "It could give succour to the enemy if they knew that everything you were going to do was going to be debated from the safety of the House of Commons later. That could lead to more attacks on you and would make you feel less safe."

When push comes to shove, it is unfair on ordinary people in our armed forces—people such as Bert, Alf and Vince and thousands of others across the country—if there is no clear chain of command. We do not know what the next conflict will be, where it will be, or how it will develop once it is under way. In those situations, we need to give the Government the room to govern. Of course Parliament should always be involved—we should always be consulted whenever possible—and I cannot imagine a time when we are not included in the broad aims of any conflict. However, we cannot allow the Bill to pass. We do not know what the precise specifications of every conflict that ever happens will be, and we certainly cannot know what will happen when those conflicts are under way. We cannot put our troops in the position of not knowing whether they would get retrospective approval for any actions that they had to take beyond what Parliament had already agreed. We cannot undermine them in that way.

We sit here, in the comfort and rarefied atmosphere of these green Benches in this beautiful city. How can we know what it is like on the battlefield? How dare we deign to tell our fighting men and women whether they were right to do what they did after they, in all good faith, have already fought and died?

Yes, some of us feel bad about Iraq; some were even in the Government when that decision was made. I think that deposing a murderous tyrant such as Saddam Hussein and introducing democracy to that part of the world was the right thing to do. I know that some people disagree. However, we cannot start changing the law for every future conflict because we feel guilty about how we behaved in the last one. We cannot constrain our troops by telling them, "You fight now—we'll decide whether you were right to fight later." We cannot tie their hands behind their backs. We have to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking about the brave men and women in Mitcham and Morden and elsewhere.