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Army: Advice of Attorney-General

My Lords, I absolutely agree. I am assured that they did evaluate it. The words used by the Judge Advocate General are ““refer to papers””, but that is not the way, as it were, it is put to me. I have considerable reservations about the specific proposal put by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. First, it is in my view the responsibility of the Attorney-General, as the ultimate civil responsibility, to make a decision where a decision falls to be made; it is not a matter for the court. Secondly, decisions on whether prosecutions should be brought and, if so, in which forum are made on the basis of the evidence and the public interest; they are matters primarily for the prosecuting authority to determine. I do not know of any case where a decision would be made to prosecute on the public interest ground and the court would feel that it was in a position to take a different view. It might from time to time say, ““Do you really think it right to proceed with this case, Mr So-and-so?”” but it would be for the prosecution to make that decision. Thirdly, as I have indicated, there are routinely hundreds of cases each year where concurrent jurisdiction decisions are being made. It cannot properly or sensibly be suggested that High Court judges should be involved. Fourthly, though, it is open to the accused to challenge the prosecution, as indeed Trooper Williams did in this case, both on the ground that it was not right to proceed and on the ground that the evidence was not there. We know what Mrs Justice Hallett decided. Finally, I understand the important question raised about the military understanding of those who make the decision. If I may respectfully say so, one does not add anything to that by taking the decision of a High Court judge. I will conclude, if noble Lords will just allow me a moment, by saying this. Noble Lords have raised important issues with which I agree about the quality of investigation and about delay. I take those issues very seriously and have raised them with all the service prosecuting authorities and discussed them with the Judge Advocate General. I believe that important provisions in the Armed Forces Bill will help in that respect—we will have an opportunity to debate those at a later stage. Important issues have also been raised about the quality of the prosecution system as a whole. I hope that the way forward now is to put behind us accusations of political correctness and political interference, which I fear are, as my noble friend Lord Corbett said, only helping when publicised to fuel concerns within the Armed Forces and among those who might join the Armed Forces—we could well do without that. Let us put those accusations behind us and all now work together to achieve those things on which we agree—a quality and independent system of justice with robust, professional investigators, with robust, professional decisions being made about whether prosecutions should be taken and with prosecutions being done within a reasonable time. That is what I want to work towards.