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Armed Forces Bill

With the indulgence of the Committee, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 20 and 21. Those amendments would limit the offence to agreements or action to overthrow or subvert authority; the offence would no longer cover agreement or action to resist that authority. That would legalise resistance to authority, as long as it stopped short of actually overthrowing or subverting that authority. Such resistance could, without doubt, imperil a mission. Concerted resistance to command authority cannot in my view—or, more important, the view of the services—be consistent with discipline. The amendment should therefore be rejected. Clause 7 complements Clause 6 by requiring service personnel to do all that they reasonably can to prevent or suppress acts of mutiny that go beyond a simple agreement to mutiny. We do not believe it right that the duty imposed on all service personnel to prevent and suppress mutiny should be limited to acts of mutiny that go beyond an agreement to mutiny. I therefore cannot support Amendment No. 23 and hope that the noble and gallant Lord will consider withdrawing it. Amendment No. 22 to Clause 7 appears to be consequential to Amendment No. 19 to Clause 6.