New pledge on body armour for troops

The army is expected to change its own rules to issue soldiers with their own body armour when they go on operations, as a matter of routine.

The move follows inquiries into the death of Sergeant Steve Roberts of the Royal Tank Regiment, who had handed over his protective vest to a colleague prior to being shot during the advance on Basra in March last year.

"It looks as if enhanced body armour will be issued to each soldier as a matter of routine," the defence consultant Paul Beaver, who advises the House of Commons Defence Committee, said last night.

This means soldiers going to war or to "hot" operations will get armour in their depots or barracks before they leave. For active service units the body vest would become standard equipment, like a rifle, helmet or pack.

In the Gulf earlier last year, body armour were distributed in theatre as action was about to begin.

Appearing before the House of Commons public accounts committee yesterday, the Defence Ministry's senior civil servant, Sir Kevin Tebbit, apologised for not enough armour being distributed to forward units in time.

One source close to the Army's Iraq planners has suggested there were in fact enough ceramic armour plates and jackets actually in the area of Kuwait where British ground forces were forming up early last March, but there had been problems with their allocation.

Today Ministry of Defence officials were meeting families of six Royal military policemen who were murdered by angry mobs in a village south of Al Amara last summer.

The investigation is one of a number into deaths of British soldiers during hostilities and the peace-keeping operations in Southern Iraq last year.