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Armed Forces Bill

Regarding Amendment No. 60, I need do no more than respectfully adopt the interventions made by my noble and learned friends Lord Mayhew of Twysden and Lord Lyell of Markyate. I was struck by the uncharacteristically sheepish way—I use an appropriate Welsh image—in which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, spoke in opposing Clauses 42 to 49 standing part of the Bill. I am not sure why he did that. Was it because we had already heard from him at some length on the previous amendment and modesty overcame him? Or was it because he was not sure of his ground? I would like to think that it was the latter, because expunging those clauses from the Bill would tear the heart out of our traditional approach to the relationship between civilian and military law. If Clauses 42 to 49 were removed, you would be left with a statutory disciplinary system for the forces. That would fly in the face of the fundamental constitutional principle that has always lain at the heart of our approach to the Armed Forces—that a soldier, sailor or airman in the services is a civilian who is undertaking such tasks. He is a citizen in arms, if you like. If we stray from that, we unravel the approach that we have traditionally taken to these matters. I wonder how this amendment might apply. Perhaps a way of testing the attempt to remove Clauses 42 to 49 is to look at what would happen when our servicemen are abroad. That was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. What happens in relation to the commission of criminal offences when servicemen are abroad? Currently, the civilian courts have extra-territorial jurisdiction only for a few serious offences. If you remove criminal conduct from the scope of the military justice system, there would be no means of prosecuting a soldier for an offence committed abroad that fell outside that limited extra-territorial jurisdiction. The only alternative, as the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, stated, would be to subject the soldier to a foreign local jurisdiction. In some cases, that would be impossible; in other cases, it would be highly undesirable, especially now, given the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, I suggest that removing the clauses would be wholly counterproductive. On this matter, the Government can rely on support from the Opposition.