Armed Forces Bill

I congratulate the Secretary of State on winning the game of musical chairs that has been running for about 20 years. He is the final Secretary of State to sit on the chair when all his predecessors have been denied one. It falls to him to win the elusive prize of achieving a tri-service Act. That is purple prose in any language. I also congratulate the Bill team at the Ministry of Defence and the parliamentary draftsmen and Treasury counsel on what has been a mammoth operation. With previous Armed Forces Bills, we have heard some quite extraordinary reasons—or should I say excuses?—wheeled out about why progress has not been made. That has never been the fault of the Ministry of Defence, which has always seen the merit of updating service law. So I am absolutely delighted that the Bill has appeared before the House, and I warmly support it. I also support the legislative process that we are about to use. I believe strongly in the value of pre-legislative scrutiny, for the reasons that Members on both sides of the House have already mentioned. I have argued for 15 years that we should use such a process for other legislation because it has enormous advantages, not least because it empowers the citizens of this country to have a direct input in the way in which policy making becomes law. That must be good for democracy, and it might even encourage people to vote. There is no part of my constituency that is not directed affected by the Ministry of Defence and the military and civilian people whom it employs. It contains Land Command, Larkhill, Bulford, Porton Down, Winterbourne Gunner, Boscombe Down, Salisbury plain training area, Westdown camp and Rollestone camp. There are low-flying zones and artillery ranges, and more than 11,000 Ministry of Defence employees. The Bill is thus important to many of my constituents. I agree with the conclusions of the Defence Committee in its first report of the current Session. It is important that the Bill establishes"““an independent voice in the consideration of complaints””," but that is not in itself sufficient. I agree with the Committee, of which I have the honour to be a member a second time around, that we should"““urge the Government to table amendments to strengthen the degree of independence””" of the complaints system in the Army—I shall come back to that in a moment. I agree with the Committee’s recommendation that we should encourage the Ministry of Defence to publish"““secondary legislation relating to the Armed Forces Bill, in draft””—" if that is all that can be achieved—to inform our scrutiny of the Bill. We are told throughout the Bill that the Secretary of State will make regulations on almost all matters of detail. We need sight of such regulations, and so do the public. I also endorse what every person who has mentioned the matter has said so far: there is a need for annual review of service discipline legislation. I understand Ministers being persuaded—probably by the Treasury—that it would save a bob or two if we did not need to have this performance. I can understand the Whips Office saying, ““You don’t really need yet more legislation, do you? Surely once every five years will do.”” I hope that Defence Ministers will be able to win the day because I suspect that the idea did not come from them. After all, the House of Commons has reviewed the matter every year since 1689. Parliament should not yield willingly such an important check on the power of the Executive.