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Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has moved his amendment on administrative tribunals, which we did not have time to consider in Committee. The use of administrative action by the services in order often to bypass the need for legal action was commonplace in the past and, from what the noble Earl says, that has not changed over the years since I was in the services. Whereas civilians have recourse to industrial tribunals when their employer deals with them through comparable action, the only action open to the serviceman at the moment is a redress of grievance, which we know is ponderous and not transparent in showing justice being done. I recognise that we may have a new situation with the ombudsman arriving, which may solve some of the problems. The one criticism I had of the noble Earl’s amendment was that at Amendment No. 39 the rights of appeal seemed to be rather narrowly drawn. I can think of cases of administrative action, varying from merely placing a letter on the personal file through to a posting on short notice, that might in other jobs amount to constructive dismissal because it has affected the person’s career. I support the principle here. If we can ensure the needs are covered by the commissioner, we may be able to meet the needs that there are, but we need to be aware that administrative action in the services is an important part of the set of different disciplinary measures available to commanding officers.