ESTABLISHMENT AND STATUS OF ULSTER DEFENCE REGIMENT (Hansard, 17 December 1969)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Ivor Richard)
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This is a clarifying Amendment which arose out of an undertaking given by my noble Friend Lord Winterbottom in another place during the Committee stage of the Bill there on 11th December.
Hon. Members who were here throughout that long night of the Committee stage in this House will remember that, at 8.22 in the morning, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) asked whether or not the description used in the Bill, "regular forces", included members of the Ulster Defence Regiment. I said in Committee that it was the intention of the Government that the call out powers for the force, or any part of it, should be confined to members of the Regular forces. I said: …and that means that someone who holds a Commission merely by virtue of his membership of the Ulster Defence Regiment will not be one of those persons authorised within the meaning of the Clause".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st December 1969; Vol. 792, c, 1236.] The need to amend the Bill to fully reflect the intention of the Government arises because Clause 2(1) provides that the authority to call out the force for emergency service may be granted to officers …of the regular forces within the meaning of the Army Act 1955… Meanwhile, the Army Act defines the expression "Regular Forces" in Section 225(1), as 1500 …any of Her Majesty's military forces other than the Army Reserve, the Territorial Army"— now the TAVR— and the Home Guard". It does not, and would not without the Amendment, exclude, in terms, the Ulster Defence Regiment. But the regiment would be part of Her Majesty's military forces, for Clause 1(2) says: Members of the force shall be members of the armed forces of the Crown…". It could be argued—though this is not conclusive—that the reference to officers of the Regular forces in Clause 1(2) includes—to be more precise, does not exclude—officers of the Ulster Defence Regiment. That, clearly, was not the intention of the Government and the Amendment would, if it be necessary—there is some doubt about whether it is strictly necessary—clarify the position and make the effect of the provision beyond doubt.
The Amendment achieves the precision which is demanded in the present state of the Bill and the call out arrangements will be confined, as was the intention of the Government, to members of the Regular forces; and that means that someone who holds a Commission merely by virtue of his membership of the regiment will not be one of those persons authorised within the meaning of the Clause.

§ Mr. Philip Goodhart (Beckenham)
While I am glad that my interpretation of the Bill as originally drafted has been vindicated in another place, I am not glad that the Government have seen fit to amend it to make it absolutely clear that Clause 2 fits their own interpretation.
The Amendment confirms the Government's intention that officers who are second in command of battalions will have substantially greater powers than those given to the unit's commanding officer in that the second in command will have power to call out the men while the commanding officer will not.
Can the Minister think of any other regiment in any other army in the world in which the second in command is given legal powers greater than those given to the commanding officer? This seems a very Irish arrangement in the worst sense of the word and I hope that it does not cause the difficulties that I foresee.

§ Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston upon Hull, North)
I welcome the tightening-up introduced by this Amendment, though I regret that the only Amendment to the Bill accepted by the Government comes from the other place. It is a good Amendment, but there were many Amendments which we sought to make here which would have added greatly to the precision which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State seeks. Unfortunately, we cannot go into the merits of those matters now.

§ Dr. M. S. Miller (Glasgow, Kelvin-grove)
Try it.

§ Mr. McNamara
The temptation is great, but knowledge of your impending righteous indignation, Mr. Deputy Speaker, prevents me.
I welcome the Amendment because it clears up a difficulty which was of some concern to hon. Members when the regiment was being debated. I put just one question to my hon. Friend. What happens in regard to an officer in the U.D.F. who is a volunteer, but on the regular reserve and who has reached field rank as a major? Would he have this power or not? This is of some importance, considering the great number of people carrying military titles who live in Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Roy Roebuck (Harrow, East)
Not titles, ranks.

§ Mr. McNamara
Yes, ranks.
I am told by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) that when he goes to the Stormont he is not sure whether he should salute or bow to the Government party. Bow he certainly does not, and "salute" would not be the way to describe the gestures which he sometimes makes.
The whole situation is made a nonsense by the provision as it will now stand. The second in command of a battalion will have greater powers than the commander. Certain officers who hold the Queen's commission are not completely trusted in the exercise of their power. A regular unit in certain matters is completely irregular, and an irregular unit in certain matters is completely regular. Finally, the regiment has in its title the name of an area in one-third of which it is not allowed to operate.
1502 It makes the situation rather ridiculous. Although we welcome the spirit of the Amendment, since it goes some way to meet some of the objections raised to the regiment and brings a little of the greater precision which we want, establishing the principle that power is vested in the G.O.C. through the Secretary of State for Defence, we can only regard it as a second-best way of dealing with the B Specials.

§ Captain L. P. S. Orr (Down, South)
The Amendment shows the danger of talking too much. It is possible that, if my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) and I had not raised the matter in Committee, we should not have this Amendment from another place, and it might have been at least possible that the anomaly it raises would never have arisen.

§ Mr. McNamara
I assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that, the first time this matter was raised in a room upstairs, this was the first obvious anomaly pointed out to the Government.

§ Captain Orr
I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman means. As I remember it, the matter was raised by my hon. Friend and myself when we asked, in Committee here, what would be the position of the battalion commanders. It appeared to us that an anomaly existed in that the second in command of a battalion could exercise powers which were not open to the battalion commander.

§ Mr. McNamara
We recognised the anomaly when we discussed the matter upstairs, but, in the circumstances, we were quite happy about it.

§ Captain Orr
Yes, I accept that from the hon. Gentleman. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is happy about any anomaly in the regiment, which he does not really want to see get off the ground. The more anomalies the more satisfied he will be.

§ Mr. McNamara
With the greatest respect—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay)
Order. The hon. Gentleman's interventions are inclined to lead the hon. and gallant Member off the Amendment before the House. I hope that he will not stray too far.

§ Mr. McNamara
On a point of order. With the greatest respect to you Mr. Deputy Speaker, the hon. and gallant Gentleman will recall that he joined with me in the spirit of my Third Reading speech, urging members of the minority—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. We are not this evening discussing the Committee stage or the Third Reading of the Bill. We are discussing the Lords Amendment.

§ Captain Orr
This is very difficult to say without infringing the rules of order, but, of course, I accept that the hon. Gentleman's guilt is solely by association. I accept that his intervention tonight was solely on that Amendment. He said, and I hope that the Minister will repudiate this, that the Amendment reflected the opinion, at least of himself, and he hoped, the Government, that those who were to become battalion commanders in the new force were people who were not to be trusted.

§ Mr. McNamara
With the greatest respect to the hon. and Gallant Gentleman, I think that you are misrepresenting me. You are—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The Chair is not misrepresenting anyone.

§ Mr. McNamara
With respect to you Mr. Deputy Speaker, the hon. and gallant Gentleman is misrepresenting the very point I was making. I imputed no motive to the Government. All that I was saying was that it seemed to bear out my feeling about battalion commanders and what we think of them in terms of the way that they have acted during recent trouble in Londonderry.

§ Captain Orr
The hon. Gentleman has made my point. I am not misrepresenting him. What he is saying is that if the Government carry out the recommendation of the Hunt Committee, namely, that the existing county commandants and senior officers of the Ulster Special Constabulary should become the senior officers and the battalion commanders of the new force, then they are people who ought not to be trusted. He thinks that the Amendment is good because it deprives them of the power to call out the battalion under their command, except with the consent of their regular second in command.
1504 I hope that the Minister will repudiate that slur. If he does not it will make it exceedingly difficult for these senior officers, who have served the State well, to continue to join the new Ulster Defence Regiment and to carry out the duty for which the Hunt Committee thought them fitted. I hope that the Minister will say something about this.

§ Mr. Richard
May I say that I have cast no slur, that I have imputed no bad intentions and that I have cast doubt on no one's motives. All I have done is to clarify the point of law. That is all that this Amendment is about.

§ Captain Orr
With respect to the Minister, I am asking him to repudiate what his hon. Friend has said. I am entitled to ask the Minister this at any rate, whether he agrees with the Lords that it is not to be taken as any slur upon the county commandants and the present Ulster Special Constabulary, who may join the new force. If he will at least say that, I shall be perfectly content.

§ Mr. Paul B. Rose (Manchester, Blackley)
The hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) seems to have made an assumption with which I should like my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to deal. It is that county commanders will somehow automatically become commanders in the new force.

§ Captain Orr
I was merely quoting the Hunt Committee on this.

§ Mr. Rose
One of the purposes of the new force, and I remember moving an Amendment on this subject in Committee, when certain undertakings were given by the Government, is that it should be a balanced force. If it is to be balanced, there must be significant changes of commanders, and it would be quite wrong for the hon. and gallant Gentleman to assume that county commandants, as he calls them, of the B Specials will carry on into the new force.
If that happened, the whole underlying assumption of the new force would be called into question, and it would become unacceptable to those of us who have accepted it in a spirit of moderation. We would be placed in an impossible position if the new force were taken over entirely 1505 by the people now in charge of the B Specials, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman is suggesting.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
We may not discuss the composition of the new force now. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will confine his remarks to the Lords Amendment.

§ Mr. Rose
I am confining my remarks to what was said by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. I ask for an undertaking from my hon. Friend that, while casting no slur on any the gentlemen involved, he will, at the same time, make it clear to the hon. and gallant Gentleman that at this time there is no certainty about who the commanders are to be and no certainty of the kind of automatic transfer implied by the hon. and gallant Gentleman.

§ Mr. Stanley R. McMaster (Belfast, East)
I support what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr). It must be obvious from the interventions of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) and the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) that, whatever the Under-Secretary may say, there is some doubt about the correct situation of this force.
We will have battalion commanders who are senior officers who, when they are serving, will be subject to the Army Act and yet not have the power themselves to call out this force, while junior officers, perhaps with only the rank of major will have the power—

§ Mr. Roebuck
May.

§ Mr. McMaster
May I accept the correction.
A major of the Regular Army may have the power and may be authorised by the Secretary of State to call out the force, whereas the battalion commander may not have the power. If this is to be a properly constituted part of the Army, senior officers should have exactly the same powers as any officer in the Regular Army and especially junior officers.
This Amendment is most unfortunate. It has already been noted by potential members of the force in Northern Ireland 1506 and I have been asked questions about it in my constituency. I assure the Minister that it is not just a matter for this House, but one that has already caused some concern in Northern Ireland. I ask him to accept that, and perhaps to consider this point again.

§ Mr. Roebuck
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State was a little hopeful when he suggested that the Amendment clarified the Bill. I do not think that I am alone in thinking that the clarification is not immediate. It has made an Irish situation even more Irish.
By way of seeing whether or not the issue is clarified, I would like to ask whether the Amendment makes any difference to the constitutional position with regard to the control this House has over the action of the Armed Forces. Down the centuries we have always exercised a very stringent control over the armed forces, and when the forces have ever been called out it has been necessary for the Executive to report that fact to the House forthwith.
But as I understand the Bill without the Amendment there is no statutory requirement for that to be done when the Ulster Defence Regiment or any section of it is called out.

§ Captain Orr
The Amendment makes no difference whatever to that.

§ Mr. Roebuck
I am not sure who is in charge of the Bill. I had suspected some time ago that it was the Ulster Unionist Party, but I hope that I am wrong in that. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister, if he is still with us after the rather curious associations he has had during the passage of the Measure, will be able to give me a rather different answer.
The point I am trying to make is that I understand that the effect of the Amendment is to make it clear that a section of the regiment can be called out only under the command of a Regular officer, that is, someone who is not a member purely of the Ulster Defence Regiment. Does that change the constitutional position? Does it mean that there is now imposed on the Secretary of State for Defence a duty immediately after some platoon is called out to report that fact to the House, and if the House is not sitting to seek to recall it, so that the matter can be re-reported to it?

§ Mr. Richard
We have had a number of interesting speeches—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must ask the leave of the House to speak again.

§ Mr. Richard
With the leave of the House, perhaps I may reply to the debate.
Only one question seemed to be directed to the Amendment, and that was by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), who wanted to know the position of a Territorial Army officer. By Section 225(1) of the Army Act, 1955. 'regular forces' means any of Her Majesty's military forces other than the army reserve, the Territorial Army and the Home Guard,…". Therefore, an officer who held Her Majesty's commission by virtue of two separate statuses, one in the Ulster Defence Regiment and one a reserve commission, would not be a member of the Regular forces within the meaning of Section 225, and so would not be a person under the Bill who would be entitled to be designated by the Secretary of State to call out the force.
I shall resist the temptation to go into matters of general policy raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr), the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose), and the fascinating constitutional questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Roebuck). The Amendment makes absolutely no difference to the constitutional position of anything. The constitutional position of the force, or indeed of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East, is exactly the same as it was before another place amended the Bill, and it will be in precisely the same position if the House accepts the Amendment, as I trust that it will at this late hour and after this somewhat protracted and diffuse debate.
It is a clarifying Amendment. It does no more and no less than to nut into the Bill what was clearly, and was in Committee expressed clearly to be, the Government's intention. Therefore, all the interesting questions about whether we have cast a slur upon potential commandants or potential non-commandants 1508 in the force, and whether, indeed, people in Ulster, or Northern Ireland, depending on whichever side of the House one happens to be for this purpose, feel either aggrieved or pleased by this position—none of that, it seems to me, has been altered one jot or tittle by the Amendment.

§ Mr. McNamara
Before my hon. Friend sits down—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Mr. Chichester-Clark.

§ Mr. Chichester-Clark
Because of the terms of the Amendment, I thought that at one moment the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) appeared to be casting something of a slur on county commandants. In view of the fact that no other responsible person, whatever may be felt about the special and general, has so far done this, I thought that the hon. Member would not wish to do so. Because, however, the hon. Lady the Member for Mid-Ulster (Miss Devlin) is not present, I am sure that the hon. Member would not wish to appear to act as her Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Hon. Members
Oh.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Member must relate his remarks to the Amendment.

§ Mr. Chichester-Clark
I wish to do that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I am sure, knowing the hon. Member, that he would not wish to give the impression—because I think that to some hon. Members he did—that he was casting such a slur.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak.

§ Mr. McNamara
On a point of order. I was under the impression, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) was giving way to me.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. The hon. Member could not be under that impression. I called the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) to speak.