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Armed Forces Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and to all noble and gallant, noble and learned and noble Lords for their contributions. I am particularly grateful to the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Inge, Lord Vincent and Lord Craig, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Viscount for their support for at least the principle of the amendment, if not necessarily the detailed drafting. Between them they raised some very important points about contemporary warfare. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Vincent, reminded us that we are dealing with a very different kind of foe from the one we dealt with in the 20th century. We are dealing with enemy soldiers who do not respect any principles of international law, while we are required to do so. This is a very different world from the one that we had only recently to cope with. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, made an extremely penetrating intervention in which he reminded us of the importance of political commitment to our Armed Forces. We have seen some examples recently of politicians trying to distance themselves from some of the things that the Armed Forces have sought to do. It is absolutely critical for the morale of our Armed Forces that politicians are seen to stand four-square behind everything the forces do. In my submission, that would be one of the beneficial effects of these amendments. Our soldiers are now operating in a world where we have an international criminal court and an international criminal convention, and where some other nations might take the view that we are engaged in unlawful warfare, making each soldier a criminal in everything he does. These are very uncertain times for our Armed Services and they need the confidence that we can give them by including this amendment on the statute book. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, said one of the difficulties about an amendment like this was the question of proportionality. A lot of people think that proportionality was invented by the human rights convention; but the concept has run through our military law for hundreds of years. The principle is simply that a soldier has to use reasonable force. If, in any circumstances, a soldier uses unreasonable or disproportionate force, he contravenes the criminal law. That applies not only to the black-letter law but also to the rules of engagement. There is no difference.