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Iraq: Fatal Shootings of Sergeant Steven Roberts and Zaher Zaher

My Lords, my colleagues, including the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, who sits beside my noble friend, will note carefully what the noble Lord has said. There was not a joint study between the two departments, so there is not one to put in the Library. However, I very much welcome the fact that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary has begun its thematic review. I understand that term to mean a review particularly looking into the ability of the SIB to deal with all the sorts of cases that are put to it, as opposed to a more general inspection of the Royal Military Police as a whole. It may be that at a later stage my colleagues will be in a position to give more detail about the terms of reference of that, which will help. As for the future, I am sure the noble Lord makes an important point about future inspection. The arrangements for criminal justice inspection will be changing as a result of the Government’s decision, but in the civilian field the existing inspectorates will be brought together as part of a single criminal justice inspectorate. That provides an opportunity also to consider, at least from my department’s point of view, what form of inspection should take place with regard to the prosecutors. I suspect that the Armed Forces Bill will provide an opportunity for consideration of that as well.