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Armed Forces Bill

Let me come back to the hon. Gentleman with the current information about penalties and figures. As regards his comments about Labour Members not coming up with figures about the sentencing of those tried and imprisoned for desertion, that is not for lack of trying. Some of us have been trying for several weeks to get that information out of the Ministry of the Defence or the Library, but it has not been possible to obtain it. I understand from some of my hon. Friends that members of the Defence Committee also tried to obtain it but were unable to do so. That is not an act of negligence on the part of those who are trying to make a different case. One of the things that was distinctly different in relation to the trial of Major Florian Pfaff in Germany was that although he and other members of the armed forces had to go through the court martial, at the end of that process they had a right to appeal to a civil court. The civil court overturned the court martial judgment on the major that resulted initially in his demotion. The arguments that he used were entirely about whether some of the orders that he was given were illegal orders relating to the preparation of weapons systems for use in the war on Iraq. Even the German civil courts were unable to question that, but they were able to rule on whether the major clearly, legitimately and conscientiously held those views. On that basis, they ruled in his favour. Nothing of that type is proposed for inclusion in this framework for our own armed forces. When Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith attempted to use similar arguments about refusing to serve in Iraq, believing that the orders were illegal, he was told that he was not allowed to have that considered because the Attorney-General had ruled that it was legal. He was not allowed to ask whether the Attorney-General had made that ruling before he knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that no uranium was coming into Iraq for enrichment, or that there was no prospect of the UK being under threat and targeted within 45 minutes. None of that was challengeable. We should be using this opportunity to open out the legitimacy of rights to contest decisions and orders. That particularly concerns me in relation to the provisions on refusal to serve in an occupation, which refer not to a legal occupation but merely to an occupation. Members who say that that is not specific to Iraq or to any particular existing conflict are right. We need to be clear about our interpretation of this. Are we saying that irrespective of whether a conflict is legal, a refusal to serve should carry with it the prospect of a sentence of life imprisonment?