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Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. That is no mere trite acknowledgement; very valuable contributions have been made, including that of the noble Lord, Lord Drayson. But it is very difficult to know quite how to approach what has been said. The fundamental conflict is that the noble and gallant Lords think there should be a new service law which recognises the realities of armed combat and which servicemen can trust—they have said so on Second Reading and on other occasions too—and the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, says, ““No, we do not want that””. The second form of conflict, which could be resolved, is that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, says, ““Yes, perhaps we should do something about it, but we are not going about it in the right way””—a perfectly legitimate comment. My noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew of Twysden thinks we should do something about it and, naturally, would like to think again about how we are going to do it. Unfortunately, how we are going to do it, I am afraid, could never be agreed between the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, and myself because we have a fundamental disagreement about statutory force, an issue which we cannot resolve. In that respect, I am basically on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Drayson. I quite agree that there are many principles at stake, but what are we going to do about it? Frankly, I do not really know, but I think something must be done. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that in the case of the Scots Guardsmen—I happen to know about it—the soldiers’ orders that morning, a Scots Guardsman having been killed by a sniper the day before, were to stop and search. They had been trained with their rules of engagement to give the warning twice—““Stop or I’ll fire””. They had been trained to fire in a certain position, in a certain way, at a certain part of the body to kill or maim. That was their training. On the last occasion, General Sir Mike Jackson was sitting on the Army board. He cross-examined them in depth and was totally satisfied that they were telling him the truth. It is no use saying that if people comply with the rules of engagement, as the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, did, they are all right. The men did not have a defence—they were not all right. If they had had a defence, they could have avoided their conviction. I will not take up more of your Lordships time. I frankly do not know what to do about this, but I feel, like I think the majority do, that something has to be done. I will try and find out how to do it and will be withdrawing the amendment.