Armed Forces Bill

That is unarguable. My next and rather different point concerns offences at sea. The Minister may be able to confirm the point when he winds up, but I understand that harmonisation of the disciplinary procedures will lead to a 50 per cent. increase in the number of naval cases being heard by court martial, as opposed to being dealt with summarily. Is that the case, and will it cause difficulties to the armed forces in terms of operational effectiveness? Is it right that the Bill does not cover administrative action, which is the lowest level of disciplinary process? If that is right, is that also to be harmonised across the services? I have spoken for long enough, but I have a few points about the procedures that the House will follow when examining the Bill. When the Secretary of State opened the debate he said that one of the great strengths of the Bill was its hybrid nature. He was right. The ad hoc Select Committee will be able to take evidence and examine the Bill line by line, for the first time in public. That follows the recommendation of the previous Defence Committee. It is right that the detailed wording of the Bill should be examined in public. In fact, all legislation should be examined in that way. Committees should be able to take evidence about the legislation on the wording of which they are about to decide. It is not simply a good method of doing business; it should be a role model for the way we do business in the rest of the legislative process. I very much hope that there will be a good representation of members of the Defence Committee on the ad hoc Select Committee, and I look to the Committee of Selection to achieve that. That will mean that the Select Committee is very strong indeed.