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Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, for the considerable efforts that he has gone to in the past weeks to brief my ex-military colleagues and I on the progress of this Bill. We have appreciated greatly the trouble that he has taken. Like many other noble Lords, we are generally very satisfied with the great majority of this Bill. However, I am extremely glad that the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, mentioned his concern about delay, because that must impact on everything to do with military discipline. I am conscious that when one is talking about a military matter at the moment, one has to be aware of three factors affecting the selection of the aim, as it were, if you are looking at it in a military context. First, there is a tendency to think that the retired military officers represent the ““old and bold”” and the reactionary, as opposed to the modern people who are facing completely different challenges. That is not wholly true, because the challenges basically boil down to persuading people to do what they do not necessarily want to do on behalf of the country. Secondly, there is the danger of extrapolating emotion out of highly publicised events, such as Deepcut, the Trooper Williams trial, the 3 Para court martial and the case of the guardsmen, as well as the forthcoming matter of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, as opposed to focusing on the needs and everyday requirements, many of which will not be discussed in emotive circumstances. However, I have to say that many members of the Armed Forces will be looking with great interest to see what action is taken against the policemen involved in the shooting in Stockwell, having observed what happens to soldiers who open fire in Iraq. Finally, we are very conscious that fewer and fewer people actually understand why the Armed Forces need a separate military discipline code. That was extremely well summed up by the Judge Advocate General, Judge Blackett, in his evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee. He said:"““There are cogent reasons for maintaining a unique system of military justice, separate and distinct from the civilian system. These are to . . . support operational effectiveness and morale . . . maintain discipline which is an essential element of command . . . reflect the special and unique nature of the Armed Forces, in which sailors, soldiers and airmen are required to use lethal force to support Government policy, to risk their personal safety, and to be prepared to lay down their lives for their country, and . . . extend the law of England and Wales to personnel serving overseas and outside the jurisdiction of the civilian courts””." Armed with that when I look at this Bill, I join with the comments of my noble and gallant friend Lord Bramall and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew. There are two aspects of particular concern. First, there is the maintenance of the position of the commanding officer and, secondly, there is our concern about the military experience and expertise of those who are to act in the prosecuting authority in various positions. A point that has already been raised by my noble and gallant friend Lord Bramall concerns commanding officers’ involvement, once a case is taken out of their jurisdiction by the service police and the prosecuting authorities. The requirement that the commanding officer must be kept informed of what is going on should be accompanied by the enablement of the commanding officer to make representations to those people involved at the time to ensure that all the military factors, or any factors that they may need to know, are actually there. This is not contained in the Bill, and it should be teased out during Committee. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, said, it is very difficult to be precise about what you mean by ““military experience”” in terms of the Director of the Service Prosecutions. Could he have been a platoon commander in an infantry battalion? Could he already have served as a prosecuting authority in a junior capacity? We need to be more specific than merely listing the legal qualities required, because he may have to make military judgments on cases that come to court. One or two other things concern me about the Bill in its present state, relating to the fact that a number of other issues were not satisfactorily discussed in the other place before they came to your Lordships’ House. For example, Clause 154, on single service panels, has already been mentioned. This is a tri-service Bill, which is fine; there will be many occasions when you need tri-service justice because you have all three services together. But for the vast majority of the day, individual servicemen and servicewomen will serve in their own service and that is all that they will see. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that single service justice panels are continued. I know that a very large number of amendments will be tabled to the Bill, and here I thank the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, for the enormous effort that he and his research staff are putting into this, which he has been sharing with my noble colleagues. When the Minister looks at the speeches and suspects that there may have been collusion between the 34 stars mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, he is absolutely correct—and I assure him that that collusion will continue. I have three particular concerns. First, the House of Commons Select Committee report on the Armed Forces Bill mentioned one particular concern that it expressed to the MoD. It says:"““We expressed our concern to MoD that we had not been provided with more detail of the proposals likely to be in secondary legislation, without which we have not had a complete picture of the legislation’s proposals. We understand that MoD intends to produce more details before the conclusion of proceedings on the Bill in the House of Commons . . . We urge the Government to provide more detail on the proposals that will be included in subordinate legislation and how they will work before the House of Commons completes its consideration of the Bill””." That point has already been made to the Minister in the deliberations that I mentioned earlier, but it is enormously important that some of the things stated in the Bill more as a generality are spelt out in detail, particularly for the future, because the detail may be lost. For example, it needs to be spelt out that the commanding officer may make recommendations during the process rather than treating it as a matter of, ““Someone said some time that it could be””. That is important. Secondly, it has been quite clear that the image of the military has been taking something of a bashing in the media, particularly over high-profile cases. I am extremely glad that the noble Lord, Lord Astor, mentioned the resurrection—or the hoped resurrection—of the post of director of public relations for the individual services. I have to declare an interest in this because I was the Army’s director of public relations during the Falklands war, so I know something about what is involved. However, the job of government information service people is connected more with Ministers. By removing the service directors of public relations, you remove people who are involved with the protection and the projection of the image of the Armed Forces. If I were director of public relations now, I should have already been preparing how I was going to limit the damage that will be caused when the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment commanding officer is arraigned in September, for example. Some of the recent problems in Iraq, I believe, could have been better explained if someone in uniform was responsible for discussing the issue with the media, and then no more will this be involved with the legal cases that I think will come before us. Finally, I hope that when timings are prepared for the furthering of the Bill, there will be sufficient time in Committee to cover all the amendments that come out, rather than just sending something incomplete back merely because we have run out of time.