Peers 'unravel' military doctrine

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Peers have put themselves at odds with some of Britain's most experienced military officers by calling for parliament to have the final say on any decision to send UK forces to war.

The Lords constitution committee said there should be new restrictions on the power of the government to take part in military action.

Thursday's report said the royal prerogative should no longer be used as a legal basis for committing Britain to war.

The government should seek parliamentary approval before using military force abroad, said the peers.

Ministers should indicate the objectives of deployment, its legal basis, its size and likely duration.

However the committee said the new arrangements should be seen as a constitutional convention given that the problems of attempting to codify them in law were too great.

That view leaves the committee at odds, however, with some of Britain's top soldiers.

Deployments

Giving evidence to the committee during its inquiry, Admiral Lord Boyce, who was chief of the defence staff from 2001 to 2003, said there were a range of forces on deployment at any given time.

"I think before we start engaging on this discussion we need to be very clear about just what we mean by deployment because that is at the heart of the whole decision, to understand what that means," he told the committee.

"Do you include the strategic deterrent? Do you include covert operations, including special forces?

"Do you include the reconnaissance missions which might lead to some sort of engagement?

"I am sure this committee is not land-centric, therefore, I presume you are thinking about ships and aircraft...

"Every time a ship deploys on a so-called peacetime mission for six months it is fully equipped and ready and trained for war so it can be flipped from one mission to another wherever it may be, even if it is going, as I said, on what is supposed to be a peacetime mission.

"What about missions that we are going to where we are joining up with an alliance operation?"

Life-threatening

Lord Boyce also said that the debate needed to approve a military deployment could prove damaging and threaten the security of the soldiers themselves.

"If you have uncertainty while you wait for the debate to run out that will affect morale," he said.

"There is the problem of escalation through rhetoric. In other words, the more this is paraded around, the more it is debated, the more the potential of escalation arises in the perception of the minds of the people you are going to operate against.

"There is the whole business of the nature of intelligence which will form the whole framework around which you make the formal decision on whether to go or not, most of which will not be able to be revealed in public.

"There is the whole matter of operational security, when you give away what your forces are going to do before they arrive and so they get murdered as they arrive because everybody was expecting them.

"The whole business of flexibility must be considered once it has been approved that a certain operation should go, if it is approved by parliament.

"What happens when the situation on the ground or at sea or in the air changes?

"Do you have to get back to parliament for another debate to sort that out, let alone the effect this would have on the whole concept of British armed forces doctrine which is based on mission command, which is to delegate down to the lowest possible level the ability of people to take decisions on the ground as the situation does change?

"You would have to unravel British doctrine if you did decide to do that.

"There is the whole business of preparation also. When do you start your preparation?

"Do you have to wait until the debate has happened before you can start getting your lorries loaded, your ships fuelled or whatever the case may be?"

Damage

General Sir Rupert Smith, who was deputy supreme commander allied powers Europe from 1998 to 2001, warned that extended political debate could prove damaging.

"By conducting such a debate I think we would find ourselves getting confused between the legality of the action we are intending to undertake and its morality and its utility, its usefulness, in the set of circumstances at the time," he said.

"We will also, I suspect, get confused as to the decision to deploy the forces and whether to employ force.

"Are we to decide this thing wherever we deploy our forces around the world and is this not an implicit expectation that we will use force?

"If we are deploying forces with no implicit expectation that we are going to use force, why are they there?"

And Field Marshal Lord Vincent of Coleshill, chief of defence staff from 1991 to 1992, said that some military operations had to be launched in total secrecy.

He cited the example of the operation to rescue soldiers being held hostage in Sierra Leone as one example.

"Some of these operations would have to be launched very quickly. Others, such as a multinational operation authorised by many UN security council resolutions, would be a much more long, drawn out, open process," he said.

Final say

But defending the report, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Holme, who chairs the committee, said that use of the royal prerogative to order military action abroad was "an anachronism".

"It should not form the basis for legitimate war making in a parliamentary democracy in the 21st century," he insisted.

"In the days when the royal prerogative was, literally, at the monarch's disposal, parliament controlled the money, so could keep military adventures in check.

"In the modern era, government controls both the money and the troops.

"The vote on Iraq in 2003 created a new benchmark, which Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Jack Straw and others have recognised as setting a precedent.

"So there is cross-party consensus that it is time to give parliament, representing the people, the final say on an issue as vital and serious as the despatch of British soldiers, sailors and airmen to hostile situations.

"What we are proposing is a modification of the prerogative, to ensure parliament has the right to decide these life and death issues.

"We are not however proposing its replacement by a new law, mainly because the difficulties of drafting such a law are almost insuperable, but, rather, a new convention binding on parliament and government, arrived at by cross-party agreement."