---

Armed Forces Bill

moved Amendment No. 36: Page 66, line 4, leave out ““90”” and insert ““60”” The noble Earl said: My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment No. 37 as well. I moved an identical amendment in Committee. My position is that the power to dish out 90 days’ military detention summarily is just too much. I am not convinced that commanding officers want this power. It is not much fun exercising summary judgments and many commanding officers will be distinctly uncomfortable awarding more than 30, let alone 60 or 90 days’ military detention, even if it can be awarded only using extended powers and with the prior knowledge of the defendant—a point of which I am sure the Minister will remind us—and even though the Royal Navy already has 90 days available for detention. The House needs to understand that military detention is not some form of military community service but a severe but effective regime. The Minister will argue that the change is desirable because without retaining 90 days for the Royal Navy the number of courts martial might have to be increased. That is a fair point, but if the Army can manage with a maximum of 60 days, what is the Royal Navy doing wrong with its regime of military detention? It must be doing something wrong. Why cannot it achieve the desired corrective effect with only 60 days? I should be interested if the Minister could tell us how often Royal Navy commanding officers have been granted extended powers beyond 60 days. The Minister will also argue that if the Army and Royal Air Force were granted the ability to award90 days with extended powers, they would be able to reduce the number of courts martial by increasingthe punishment available, because it would not be necessary to resort to court martial. But the argument would be more convincing if we saw Army commanding officers regularly seeking and using extended powers. One senior Army officer to whom I spoke last week said that he never sought extended powers when he was a commanding officer, and when he was a brigade divisional commander he never granted them. It would be helpful if the Minister could show some statistical evidence that the extended powers are currently being sought and used by commanding officers, and of to what extent the Royal Navy uses extended powers over 60 days. Make no mistake—I was and still am prepared to exercise military discipline, but detention of over60 days is excessive. I beg to move.