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Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I, too, welcome the opportunity to discuss this long awaited Bill. I would also like to thank the Minister, his predecessor, my noble friend Lord Bach—who was in his place a short while ago—and the MoD Bill team, headed by Mrs Teresa Jones, for their valiant efforts over the past two years in trying to keep noble Lords up to date with the various debates on and guises of the Bill. The Bill’s overall intentions are to be welcomed and many noble Lords have already done so. It is 50 years since the discipline Acts of the three services were implemented in the 1950s. Since that time, society has changed beyond recognition in so many different ways. The Armed Forces themselves have changed. There is much more bi-service and tri-service co-operation and operations today. A disciplinary Act is needed that covers all three services while at the same time recognising the unique culture in each of the three services—or, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, discreetly said before the Select Committee, the tolerable variations between each service. The Bill was referred to the Select Committee in another place and that committee’s considerations were in public. I welcome both those aspects, which have certainly been helpful in understanding this wide-ranging Bill. The rigour of the committee’s considerations has helped a number of us when reading the reports and the evidence given to the committee. The Armed Forces are distinct from other parts of society. The work and the commitment that our forces pledge to the nation—sometimes people have to give their very lives—make it paramount that there is a separate system of service law and discipline to that for civilian folk. That is the basis on which I approach this really quite complex Bill. I wish to address some key parts of the Bill. Chapter 3 covers desertion, which has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Judd but no one else. The clauses are a considerable improvement on what we have at the moment, and I welcome those improvements, but that is not surprising, since the disciplinary Acts written 50 years ago were bound to be very different from what we would expect today. However, I need convincing that a maximum of a life sentence is necessary for desertion. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Judd that we would invite people into the services and then go around encouraging them to be conscientious objectors, which is the complete opposite of the intention. However, I need convincing that a maximum of a life sentence is necessary for desertion. Appreciating and understanding the military context is essential to the administration of a fair justice system in the Armed Forces, and key to that is the commanding officer. Clauses 52 to 54 relate to the role of the commanding officer, which has been referred to already in the debate. I understand the logic in the Bill, and I understand the evidence that was presented in another place. I also understand that it was accepted that the commanding officer will be kept ““in the loop””. I am not too sure what that means in a disciplinary context. There is a reference in Clause 127 to giving power to ““prescribed persons”” to be notified of ““prescribed matters””. The Minister referred to that in his opening remarks. Will he confirm that the words proposed in regard to the commanding officer being ““in the loop””, so to speak, will be in the Bill? If they are there, as I hope they will be, just what involvement will the commanding officer have? If the words are not in the Bill, will they come forward in secondary legislation during the passage of the Bill through this House, so that we have an opportunity to consider them? Chapter 2 deals with time limits. If there is one area where this Bill could help, it would be to shorten the time that the process of the system of discipline takes—the whole process, not just getting to the point of charging. As we have seen in all too recent cases, quite often it is the time that the process takes that causes the stress that has such a damaging impact on the service personnel concerned, their families and sometimes the wider morale of their colleagues in their unit back at base. I welcome Chapter 3, which covers double jeopardy. Trooper Williams is the often quoted example, but this is not legislating for a one-off situation; that would be bad legislation. Other parts of the Bill will help, but this chapter is very important. In Part 18, Clause 358 is one of the most critical parts of the Bill. It provides for the position of a Director of Service Prosecutions, but it does not provide that the person appointed must be either a serving officer or have military experience. I have read with interest the evidence given to the Select Committee in another place, and I have followed the various briefings from the MoD. I understand the difficulties about getting the right wording in the Bill, and I agree that the core must be that the best person for the job should be appointed. But, with my limited experience with the Armed Forces, I cannot believe that it is not possible to guarantee that the Director of Service Prosecutions has both legal and military experience. In fact, I think that that is essential, not least because we are talking about the confidence of service personnel in the process and in the people involved in it who are meting out the decisions affecting their lives. The Minister may, I believe, recognise that there is an issue here, and I ask that in winding up he will give an indication of how he intends to address this in Committee. All Bills have secondary legislation, and this one perhaps more than most. Mr Humphrey Morrison, director of legal services at the MoD, in describing the scale of the task of drawing up the statutory instruments relating to this Bill, said:"““It is a big project””." That is perhaps one of the best understatements that I have heard in a long time. As I am sure the Minister recognises, it is important that the various pieces of secondary legislation relating to this Bill come before us as the Bill progresses through this House. It is important that the Bill does not leave this House without the principal components that will be covered in secondary legislation being put before us for consideration and discussion. There is much to welcome in this Bill. Much of it will give support both to operational effectiveness and to the confidence of personnel in the system. But some of the changes that are needed—which have been highlighted in this debate and are derived from the work of the Select Committee—will in the end, of themselves, determine just how successful the Bill will be in meeting what is expected of it.