Scots Army death inquiries move 'must speed up'

Published on Friday 2 January 2009 12:45

Liberal Democrats today hit out at the "disgraceful" slow progress of moves to enable fatal accident inquiries to be held into overseas deaths of Scots servicemen.

They urged both the Scottish and Westminster governments to move faster and to work together.

The call came from Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael in letters to Defence Secretary John Hutton and Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.

"Scottish forces families should not have to face the additional strain and inconvenience of travelling to England to attend an inquest unless that is absolutely necessary," said Mr Carmichael.

"There really is no good reason why with some effort and goodwill this problem could not be solved."

He went on: "We are told that the Scottish justice minister has written to the UK Defence Secretary saying that this can be done by the Scottish Parliament.

"If this is so, why isn't he bringing forward legislation now? And why isn't John Hutton publicly supporting his proposals?

"The families of our service men and women deserve better than this."

In March last year the then Defence Secretary, Des Browne, said it was for Holyrood and not Westminster to change the law to allow deaths of military personnel killed abroad to be investigated in Scotland.

The legislation covering Scotland's system of fatal accident inquiries is currently being reviewed by senior judge Lord Cullen.

Kenny MacAskill wrote to John Hutton in November confirming the Scottish Government's agreement to a new category of mandatory inquiry for overseas military deaths.

The Ministry of Defence has said there must be "guarantees" that every military death on overseas operations will have a fatal accident inquiry, as this is a commitment given to personnel and their families.

But in his letter today to the two ministers, Mr Carmichael said: "It seems inexplicable to many families that everyone agrees that this would be a desirable change but nobody ever makes it happen.

"While our troops may be set to return from Iraq, they continue to serve bravely in Afghanistan and doubtless will be called upon to do so again at some future date in some other part of the world.

"The need for this change does not go away simply because our troops return from Iraq."