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Armed Forces Bill

I, too, support the amendment. It seems that it is the luckless soldier who gets court martialled if things go wrong, and there may be times when he is to blame. However, by ducking the issue and not having something on it in the Bill, the Government are wriggling and not taking responsibility. As I think noble and gallant Lords have mentioned, responsibility should be driven right up the chain of command. That is so important. It may be unpopular, but perhaps a senior officer or a Minister will have to explain himself in a court case, which would be no bad thing. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, made some startling points. We were together on the business in Ulster when we rehearsed it and explained it in your Lordships’ House. Out of that came one thing that I would say to the Minister: I understood that about 140 to 150 shots were fired in that instance—which is quite separate from other instances—and it was night time. Only one person was hit. I call that extremely bad shooting and marksmanship. I would have had that group out very early the next morning for some good battle firing training. From that, when the noble Lord gives your Lordships’ House figures on casualties in Afghanistan, I hope that the figures of the Taliban dead are pretty accurate. Have the bodies been counted or are we still shooting an awful lot of ammunition?