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Armed Forces Bill

moved Amendment No. 19: Page 4, line 12, leave out subsections (1) and (2) and insert- ““(1) Mutiny by a person subject to service law is an offence. (2) A person is guilty of mutiny within the meaning of this Act if- (a) he agrees with at least one other person subject to service law to overthrow or resist authority; (b) he agrees with at least one other person subject to service law to disobey authority, and the agreed disobedience would be such as to subvert discipline; (c) he, in concert with at least one other person subject to service law, acts with the intention of overthrowing or resisting authority; or (d) he, in concert with at least one other person subject to service law, disobeys authority in such circumstances as to subvert discipline.”” The noble and gallant Lord said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 22 and 23. Mutiny is a most serious offence and, happily, of very rare occurrence. Rightly, if someone subject to service law were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to imprisonment, it could be for life. With such a punishment, it seems to me that the wording of Clause 6 should be in language which is crystal clear and which defines mutiny. Tomorrow's serviceman—even one today—can access via the internet the wording of any recent Act or Bill. I have Clause 6 on my PDA, and you can now get a PDA for a relatively modest sum. So it seems to me that this Committee should be most careful about the clarity of the wording and definitions of major offences in the Bill. My Amendment No. 19 is probing, and possibly prodding. The word ““mutiny”” does not appear in the text of Clause 6—only in the side heading and the centre heading above it at line 11. According to my staff college training in service writing, which I assume had its basis in legal practice, it was wrong to rely on the words of a side or centre heading, and my directing staff would have red-inked it as a mistake if I had done that. In the whole of Clause 6, the word ““mutiny”” appears in the side heading only. It appears twice in lines 31 and 34 in the following clause, Clause 7, so it seems reasonable to expect Clause 6 to be very clear in its references to, and definitions of, mutinous behaviour. I noted a difference of approach in the way that some of the clauses in this part have been drafted. Some start, as does Clause 6, with the generality: "““A person subject to service law commits an offence if””." Others—for example, Clauses 8 and 9—state explicitly that a person subject to service law commits an offence if he ““deserts”” or if he is, "““intentionally or negligently absent without leave””." These offences, particularly desertion, are serious, and it is right to make plain what the defences are and to define them. My Amendment No. 19 to Clause 6 is an attempt to emulate the approach of Clauses 8 and 9, so it starts with the words: "““Mutiny by a person subject to service law is an offence””." It is not clear to me whether Clause 6 is drafted to catch a person subject to service law with a charge such as disobeying authority so as to subvert discipline, which does not have the word ““mutiny”” in the charge. If so, I do not like it. I attempt in my amendment to make it clear that mutiny is an offence for a person subject to service law; the amendment brigades as definition the four types of mutinous behaviour given in the present Clause 6 into one subsection. The Marshalled List does not repeat exactly the amendment that I tabled, which was reflected in HL Bill 113(n) and in the Keeling version, which the Minister sent to many of us. The word ““or”” is now missing from the end of both paragraphs (a) and (b). My intention was to make an offence of the behaviour set out in any one of the four paragraphs that define mutinous behaviour. I now understand that it is not necessary to repeat the word ““or”” to make it clear that the behaviour set out in any one of the four paragraphs would be deemed to be mutinous behaviour, so I am content with the absence of the word ““or””. Amendment No. 22 simply follows my approach of clarity. In Amendment No. 23 I seek an explanation from the Minister as to why the Bill distinguishes between an agreement with at least one other person to mutinous behaviour, as in Clause 6(1), and acting in concert with at least one other person to overthrow or to disobey authority, as in Clause 6(2). Clause 7(1)(a) refers to mutiny occurring or ““intended””. I do not follow why the different definitions of mutinous behaviour have to be separated so that only the latter group—that is, in Clause 6(2)—is caught by the definition of mutiny. Anyone failing to take steps to suppress or prevent mutiny ought to be culpable. As I could not understand the distinction drawn by Clause 7(2), I adopted the approach in my Amendment No. 19 of brigading the four mutinous behaviour definitions into one subsection, deleting Clause 7(2) as a consequence. I look forward to the Minister’s elucidation. I beg to move.