Armed Forces Bill

The hon. Gentleman is asking me to square a circle, which cannot be done. One cannot give absolute authority to the commanding officer summarily to dismiss a case and then say that the director of service prosecutions may overrule that authority—one cannot have both things. The ultimate arbiter on serious offences must be either within the armed forces or the commanding officer. If one chooses the commanding officer, problems arise in circumstances such as the Trooper Williams case, because there is no other place in the military where such a case can be tried by virtue of the fact that the absolute powers on summary dismissal lie with the commanding officer. When the Trooper Williams case was referred to the Attorney-General, the Attorney-General had no recourse other than the civilian courts, and I am protecting us against that occurring again. I accept that in the real world there is no ideal solution that would give the absolute power of decision both to the director of service prosecutions and to the commanding officer. I understand that any decision will have a downside, but I contend that for the armed forces as a whole, including the chain of command, which will be free to give succour and support to an individual accused by the director of service prosecutions under the commanding officer’s care of duty, the upside far outweighs the downside. In the Trooper Williams case, the downside was the furore caused by its referral outside the services. I hope that I have spent sufficient time trying to answer that question.