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Armed Forces Bill

My name also has been added to the first of the two amendments and I strongly support it. It should be considered absolutely essential that the person who is taking prosecutorial decisions about our service men and women not only understands and appreciates the context in which they operate, but has had some first-hand experience of what service life and conditions entail. Our service men and women must have confidence that the person taking the ultimate decision about whether a case should be brought against them has a first-hand understanding of what serving in the Armed Forces entails. Without it, every time a serious prosecution is brought against one of them, there will be the feeling in the military, rightly or wrongly, that yet again the civilian system is attacking the military. That will only exacerbate the unspoken feeling among our Armed Forces that the Government do not appreciate the maintenance of trust that underpins everything that the military does. One factor that leads soldiers to trust officers in the chain of command is the belief by a subordinate that his superior officer understands, and has experienced to a degree, the situation in which the soldier finds himself. If we are asking an individual to subject himself or herself to service law and discipline, he or she should be able to have trust in the person who ultimately upholds it. The Select Committee in another place concurred when it stated, at paragraph 73 of its report: "““Whilst we appreciate the difficulties involved in defining military experience in statute, we do consider it important for the Director of Service Prosecutions to have had military experience””."