Armed Forces Bill

May I begin by saying how pleased I am to be called to speak on this important Bill for the men and women of our armed forces? As has been said, the current military justice system, although effective, dates back to the 1950s. This is a good opportunity not only to modernise the law relating to it but to combine the three services’ disciplinary legislation into one. I want to concentrate on just two aspects of this very lengthy Bill: the proposed introduction of a complaints panel, and clause 371—it has already been referred to—which deals with renewal of service disciplinary legislation. During the last Parliament, I was honoured to be a member of the Defence Select Committee, and I am honoured to be a member of it in this one. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) has already pointed out that, during the previous Parliament, our Committee undertook a lengthy inquiry into the duty of care of trainees in all three of our services. The inquiry was prompted by serious concerns about the deaths of recruits and trainees in initial training establishments, especially those of four young soldiers at the Princess Royal barracks at Deepcut, Surrey, between 1995 and 2002. Following the publication of Surrey police’s final report, our Select Committee thought it right not only to undertake an inquiry that could make a significant contribution to the debate on how to improve Ministry of Defence policy on the duty of care of trainees, but to see what we could do to restore public confidence in military training, especially that given by the Army. We took evidence from Deepcut families and from the families of individuals who had died at the Catterick garrison’s infantry training centre.