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Armed Forces Bill

I am slightly disappointed by the Minister's reply to what was, after all, a probing amendment to try to get some clarity on what he thought ““resisting”” meant. He has told us that, because at the extreme end ““resisting”” is tantamount to ““overthrowing”” authority, all lesser things should be encompassed by it. I was rather hoping that he would find some way to define it more narrowly to make it appropriate to an offence of this magnitude. His answer did not give us that. I was also slightly surprised that, in tackling the issue raised by the amendment of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, he did not pick up the helpful suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford that he could still have kept the offences—that is, agreeing to do mutinous things and acting mutinously—separate by a fairly simple addition to the noble and gallant Lord’s amendment.