Royal Navy: Conduct towards Women

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on conduct towards women in the Royal Navy.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his timely question. Before I get going, I would like to declare my interest as entered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a serving reservist and, more particularly for this particular urgent question, I have two daughters who are currently serving in the armed forces.

I was concerned by the recent reports in the media that have prompted this UQ, little knowing that I would be answering it this afternoon. Allegations of bullying, harassment and sexual assault in the Submarine Service are and will be taken extremely seriously. Any activity that falls short of the highest standards in the Royal Navy is totally unacceptable and not a true reflection of what life should be. Sexual assault and harassment have no place in the Royal Navy and will not be tolerated.

The First Sea Lord has directed a formal investigation into these allegations, and this commenced on 24 October. This independent investigating team, led by a senior female officer, will thoroughly examine the allegations and report back very soon. It is understood that the named individual has agreed to meet the investigation team to provide her account. While this investigation will review specific allegations, Defence will also review the culture of the submarine community and report to Ministers in due course. The House will understand that it would be premature to offer any further comment or debate until those investigations are complete. However, anyone who is found culpable will be held accountable for their actions regardless of their rank or status.

While some of the incidents referred to in the media are historical, it is important to note the large-scale policy changes that were introduced across Defence in the past year. As a result, Defence will deal with incidents and allegations of sexual abuse better. The new policies will ensure zero tolerance of unacceptable sexual behaviour or of sexual exploitation and abuse within Defence. All allegations of sexual offences will be responded to, victims will be given greater support and there will be a presumption of discharge for anyone found to be engaging in this kind of behaviour.

Britain can be immensely proud of its Royal Navy, which over the centuries has helped to define who we are as a nation. Today it is globally recognised as arguably the best-trained, best-motivated and best-disciplined maritime force in the world. It is therefore deeply concerning to see more reports emerging of inappropriate behaviour against women, this time on the very submarines that provide our nuclear deterrent.

I welcome the statement and the First Sea Lord’s promise of another investigation. Only three years ago, the Ministry of Defence was obliged to commission its own study, the Wigston review, which admitted

“an unacceptable level of…behaviour and a sub-optimal system for dealing with it”.

The Defence Committee carried out a study last year, and over 4,000 female personnel replied to our survey run by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton). Sixty-four per cent. of respondents said they had endured bullying, harassment, intimidation, discrimination or sexual abuse, and few had any faith in the mechanism through which these concerns could be addressed.

My Committee made two clear recommendations: first, the establishment of a central defence authority to provide a reporting system outside the chain of command and, secondly, the removal of the chain of command entirely from complaints of a sexual nature. Will the MOD now implement these recommendations and encourage others, both serving and retired, to share their concerns on safety?

Women have proudly served in our armed forces for over a century, and all roles are now open to women. To be fair, the majority leave with a positive view of their time in uniform. This is about a few personnel who bring the Submarine Service into disrepute. It is about a systemic failure of the chain of command, and the MOD must now accept its role and prioritise putting this right.

I thank my right hon. Friend again. He is correct to put matters in these terms. He has been robust and forthright, which I respect.

My right hon. Friend will know that the great majority of women serving in our armed forces today respond positively when asked about their experiences and say they would recommend the services to others. He will also be aware of the work done this year in response to his Committee’s report. I would like to say I have read it from cover to cover, but I have been in post for only a few hours, so he will forgive me for not doing so. I get the gist of it, and I will study it extremely carefully.

My right hon. Friend will know that the MOD has already accepted the great majority of the report. He and I have been around a long time, and I cannot think of a Select Committee report in recent times that has had so many of its recommendations accepted and carried out. He will be familiar with “Tackling Sexual Offending in Defence” and the two pieces of work on a zero-tolerance approach that have been published this year.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) and their Committee. The great majority of the recommendations are being carried out or will be carried out.

I call the shadow Minister, Luke Pollard.

I welcome the new Minister to his position. Those who serve in our armed forces should expect the highest standards of professionalism and personal conduct, which must be supported and reinforced by the Government. As the son of a Royal Navy submariner, I know that the Submarine Service is on the frontline of our national defence. Every submariner must be confident that the people they serve alongside in the Royal Navy have their back. These claims of abuse are extremely serious and must be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible must be held accountable.

These reports lift the lid on a culture of abuse and cover-up in our armed forces. In far too many cases, victims are unable to raise their experiences within the chain of command. Women account for 11% of our forces personnel but, between 2019 and last year, 81% of victims of sexual assault in the military were women, and almost half of them were at the start of their military career. Behind these statistics are hundreds of women who have been let down. This cannot be allowed to continue. Victims of sexual abuse serving in our armed forces must have confidence in the processes that allow them to report their experiences, and they must know that robust action will be taken.

I suggest that the Minister reads the Defence Committee’s report before coming back to the House to tell us how he will implement all of it. Will he make the investigation he has just announced a public investigation so we can see what action is needed? Can he explain why the Government continue to resist Labour’s proposal that the most serious cases, including murder, manslaughter and rape, should be tried in civilian courts instead of military courts? What progress has been made on the RAF’s review of allegations of sexual assault, which was announced in August? Will those findings be made public?

Our armed forces are the very best in the world, and they deserve the very best, too. The Government must step up and protect those who protect us.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points. I agree with him about external scrutiny. That is why the investigation that has been set up, which will report soon, to which I referred, will include an individual from outside Defence, who is currently being selected for his or her independence, probity and integrity, who will be alongside that investigation. I do not know where this is going to go. I suspect it is going to be complicated and may take a while. I want it to report quickly, but I do not want to put a time limit on it necessarily.

However, it is going to report “soon”—that wonderful, plastic term. It will have within it an independent individual —the hon. Gentleman will understand that that is a divergence from the norm—because I am absolutely clear that there needs to be oversight of this that is outside the process. He will know full well that these investigations are conducted properly always—I have been involved with a number myself—but there has to be the appearance also of their being transparent. I hope that that will give him some reassurance.

The hon. Gentleman refers to the Henriques report, most of which of course was accepted. He may also be aware of the joint protocol that will be drawn up for the very serious offences that he cites between the civilian and the service prosecuting authorities. I hope that that goes some way to addressing that outstanding concern that I know he has.

A parallel strand of work is being set up by the commander of the submarine flotilla to look into conduct and culture. That will be headed by Colonel Tony de Reya from the Royal Marines. That will report, I hope, by the end of the year. It is separate from the investigation on the specific that I have cited in my opening remarks, but, obviously, it will touch on much of the same material. I look forward to returning to the House to discuss that once Ministers have had a chance to examine its findings and conclusions.

It must not come down to one brave woman being prepared to speak out; there have to be processes in place where every woman and man serving in our armed forces has the confidence to come forward. I say gently to my right hon. Friend that we cannot simply be looking at the culture in the submarine community. This happens across our armed forces and we need to have processes that are swift and give redress to those victims, so that they come forward with confidence. I have a constituent who is not at the start of her military career—she is a lieutenant colonel—who waited 10 years before the Ministry of Defence took her complaint seriously. We have to have faster justice for the women who have been victims of this sort of culture.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. This is my 42nd year in Defence as a regular and reservist, and over that time things have changed dramatically—I am happy to say that is the case—particularly in the past few years. I accept all of her comments. There is no room for complacency. With two daughters in the armed forces, I am certainly not complacent. However, I have to refer to some of the objective data that we have, some of which is to do with the sexual harassment surveys that each of the three services conduct and that show a positive trend. We can argue as to whether that is fast enough, and certainly it should not be the antidote to complacency. Nevertheless, it is positive in terms of the experience of people feeling supported and feeling that their complaints will be dealt with outside the chain of command, where appropriate, with action taken. That is very positive, but she is right to say that there is no room for any complacency and a single complaint is one too many.

I call the SNP spokesperson, Brendan O’Hara.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think we are all agreed that the reports that emerged over the weekend are truly shocking, and I pay tribute to the women who have spoken out about the abuse they suffered, including Sophie Brook, the former Royal Navy lieutenant, who described her abuse as being “constant”. She said that it came from the top down, confirming what Emma Norton, from the Centre for Military Justice, said about there being a culture of

“Nasty, pernicious, endemic, sexual harassment”,

within which people acted with impunity. That must change.

Therefore, I am sceptical about the First Sea Lord’s announcement of yet another internal investigation. It is simply not good enough. As the MP for Argyll and Bute, which takes in the naval base at Faslane, I understand that this episode casts a shadow over the entire service. I am sure that there are thousands of hard-working, thoroughly decent Royal Navy personnel who will demand that those responsible, irrespective of their rank or status, are rooted out and disciplined. They will want a thorough independent investigation, one that can report without fear or favour. So does the Minister agree that that can be achieved only by a fully transparent, truly independent investigation of these facts?

It would be nice to have the facts first. That is the point of the investigation that was launched on 24 October, which—let us be clear—was before the publication of the lurid accounts that appeared in the media. I think that gives a signal of intent that Defence is looking at these matters very seriously, as does the inclusion of a non-Defence person in the investigation, which is important. The hon. Member will note the number of senior officers who have been dealt with severely because of transgression in this particular area. That is also an indication of how seriously Defence takes such matters. He is right to push me on this, but I point him to the series of three major reports by Defence during the course of the year that outline what Defence will now do to ensure that the environment is as good as possible for those who have had cause to make serious allegations in the recent past.

The allegations that we have heard are clearly horrifying, and I know that the investigation will have to take its course, but it is equally disturbing that there does not appear to have been a safe, independent route of complaint for the people involved. Whatever the outcome, will the Minister confirm that that at least will be put right?

The excellent report by our right hon. Friend’s Select Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham in particular, makes some recommendations along those lines, and much of that has been accepted, so the general trajectory of the environment—in particular for women who have found that Defence has in the past not provided the background against which they would want to conduct their careers and lives—will be improved. It is worth underscoring—our right hon. Friend made this point—that the great majority of women serving in our armed forces today have a positive experience that they would recommend to others.

I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a trustee of the Agnes Wanjiru trust. Agnes Wanjiru was a prostituted woman in Kenya who was murdered on the site where there were military personnel; I will say no more about the case, except that it has not been pushed forward.

The Minister has referred to a number of documents that have been produced since other cases have come to light. There have been a number of documents of progress. One document to which he referred is on sexual exploitation policy, which now disallows Defence forces having sex with sexually exploited people abroad. However, the document specifically says:

“While the policy is not intended to apply in the UK”.

Does the Minister think it is okay that the Department has written into a document that it is fine for British military personnel to sexually exploit people in the UK?

Sexual exploitation is unacceptable in the UK and abroad under any circumstances.

I welcome my right hon. Friend the Minister to his place.

The incident we are discussing is horrifying, but the statistics in the Defence Committee report—that over half of women in the armed forces have experienced bullying and harassment in the workplace—are also totally unacceptable. There are simply no excuses for such behaviour. We have had women in the armed forces for many years, but only recently in very senior roles. How many excellent women heading for senior roles does the Minister think have left the armed forces because of the culture of bullying and harassment?

Bullying and harassment of women is particularly appalling, but we have to understand and be honest with ourselves that it has historically been a feature of service life more generally. I suspect the behaviour that my hon. Friend has just described has been a feature of the retention issue for many years. It is wasteful, it is wrong, and it has to stop. We hope that 30% of our service personnel will be women by 2030, so the issue is quite a big deal in terms of the whole force. Although we are dealing with the issue in relation specifically to women in the armed forces today, it is applicable right across Defence. It is wrong for the organisation, and it is wrong for the individuals and their families.