Armed Forces Bill

It is always a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), who can be counted on to find a royal angle in most Bills that come before us—congratulations to him on that. As has been said, this Bill is the most radical revision of military law in almost 50 years, and the Bill team and the Minister should be congratulated on introducing this ambitious set of measures. It provides an opportunity to restore public confidence in the military justice system, which, as we have heard, has been called into question, whether as a result of allegations of abuse in Iraq or at home. Cases have collapsed and some have taken years to be brought to trial; others have been closed because of the inadequacy of the initial investigation. Several successful challenges have been made, moreover, to the military justice system in the European Court of Human Rights. Whether we are idealists or realists, it is our responsibility as a society, as the Secretary of State said, to find a new consensus on the military justice system that all can unite behind. I should like to propose two general principles. In a modern democratic society, it is no longer acceptable for the military to investigate itself behind closed doors. Secondly, there has to be a timely and effective public investigation by an independent official body, and defendants and victims’ families must be kept informed throughout the entire process. We can argue about how to put those principles into action in the particular operational context of military law, but they are the basic ones that I want to propose for our deliberations. Many elements of the Bill are to be welcomed. It places a clear duty on commanding officers to ensure that cases are appropriately investigated, and it requires that service police be informed about serious cases and that they refer them to an independent director of service prosecutions, who may come from a civilian background. Those important measures are to be welcomed and they are in line with the general trend. In 1996, the previous Conservative Government created Army and other prosecuting authorities that were independent of the chain of command, and this Bill makes some important changes to the role of commanding officers. As we have heard, however, there is continuing concern about the grievance procedures. The Bill provides a streamlined grievance procedure for members of the armed forces, but it is not clear that it provides one for their relatives or for civilians affected by military action, whether at home or abroad. There is a modernised system for internal service inquiries, but where in the Bill is provision made for an independent inquiry into matters of public concern? Although the Bill continues the trend toward greater independence, it is at its weakest on grievance procedures. On the commanding officer’s role, human rights lawyers have claimed that more than 20 inquiries into alleged abuse have been blocked by Army commanders. It would be useful to have some information on the number of alleged serious offences that have been dismissed at a commanding officer’s request. There certainly appears in at least one case to be prima facie evidence of"““a concerted attempt by the chain of command to influence and prevent an investigation””." That is not my contention; I am quoting directly from the Attorney-General’s letter to the then Secretary of State for Defence. Indeed, the Attorney-General went on to say:"““In this particular case it was precisely because of the exercise of those powers””—" the commanding officer’s powers—"““that I felt it necessary to move the case to the civilian jurisdiction in order to maintain public confidence””." It therefore appears that there is a strong case for the proposed changes to the commanding officer’s role. Other concerns have been expressed by the Attorney-General and others about the quality of initial investigations. We are told that at least six prosecutions have collapsed because of inadequate investigations, and we have also heard about the case of seven members of the Parachute Regiment. We should remember that in that case the judge found that there might be"““sufficient evidence . . . for a court martial board to conclude that Nadhem Abdullah””—" the victim in question—"““died as a result of””—"