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Armed Forces Bill

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, for whose contribution I am very grateful, brings to mind the fact that until now there has been a reviewing authority; certainly it was condemned by the European Court. The reviewing authority has had the power to change sentences from time to time, and the person who carried out the review was usually, at least in serious cases, the Judge Advocate General. He looked at the conviction, but he also looked at the sentence that had been passed. In a recent case, an eight-year sentence was reduced by the reviewing authority to four years, and is still subject to an appeal on sentence at four years to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division. That is an ongoing case. Now that the Bill takes the reviewing authority away, it removes from the system the one person—the Judge Advocate General—who reviewed conviction and sentence in the past. There is now, quite deliberately—I do not object to it at all—a simple channel from the decision taken by the court martial to the courts martial appeal court. The sentencing appeals may therefore be much greater in the future without the check of the reviewing authority to alter an obviously unfair and improper sentence.