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Armed Forces Bill

I support my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, from my own military perspective. I am slightly surprised by the way the debate has gone. The amendment does not talk about civilianising; it talks about keeping the single service ethos of courts martial. Yet the whole Bill is about bringing the service discipline Acts together. There is not a lot of point in having the Bill if we are going to keep our own separate systems. It is a spurious argument to say that an Army officer cannot judge a fast jet pilot on the panel of a court martial, or that an air force officer does not know the circumstances of soldiers who fight. Those of us who have taken charges of airmen who fight do not think there is necessarily that much difference. That does not matter. In any court martial system, even when it is single service, the members of the panel will be specialists in their own right and not necessarily specialists in what the accused has as their specialisation. We are asking for an informed panel who know about military operations. If we continue to stay in stove pipes by service, we will continue to differ in the way that we treat people between the three services. That does not seem sensible in a world where we are going forward into joint operations.