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Armed Forces Bill

As is the way of things, my points have been eloquently made by my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) and for Newark (Patrick Mercer), so I shall be brief and make just one or two further points. I am very concerned about the implications of the clause and the effect that it will have on the relationship between a commanding officer and those who serve them. The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) made a good point about gangs of lawyers following our forces wherever they go as part of operations as being a perception that is not borne out in reality. I shall not stand here and pretend that there is an office of Matrix Chambers opening up in Basra and that our troops will constantly be harassed under human rights legislation. Nevertheless, we have to accept that we live in a much more litigious society, and our troops going on operations are daily faced with a greater threat of litigation. We know that untoward advances have been made to people in an area such as Basra and we have to be extremely careful about how we protect our forces in that context. Clause 116 is important in the context of alleged crimes committed by soldiers. Commanding officers understand more than anyone else the context in which an alleged offence may have occurred. I will not go through the details of the Trooper Williams case, because it was discussed at great length in Committee.