Armed Forces Bill

There is a whole system of military law that is designed to ensure that those who break the law in the fashion that the hon. Gentleman sets out are brought to account. Indeed, a number of cases are currently before the authorities for that precise reason. With that intervention, I am afraid that he blows his case straight out of the water. Serving in Iraq is neither immoral nor illegal. As the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) said, that war and the subsequent deployment there are illegal under neither United Kingdom nor international law. The deployment in Iraq is supported by United Nations resolutions, and the Attorney-General has reported that the United Kingdom’s actions in Iraq are not illegal. Let me remind the Committee of an interesting moment, when the Chief of the Defence Staff—then Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, now Lord Boyce—specifically asked on behalf of every serviceman and servicewoman under his command, that is everyone in uniform, whether the war was legal. He obtained that assurance from the Government. He was right to obtain it on behalf of all who served in Her Majesty’s armed forces, and from that time onwards every person in Her Majesty’s armed forces was protected. Perhaps the Minister will be able to confirm that it is unlikely that the maximum sentence would ever be imposed, and that the most serious punishments would relate to desertion from one’s post and putting the lives of one’s comrades in danger in the way described by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer). I am sure we all agree that it is absolutely right and proper for us to ensure tonight that in such cases a suitable punishment is available. It would be a dereliction of our duty to protect our armed forces if we removed the possibility of life imprisonment for desertion in the circumstances outlined by my hon. Friend and alluded to by others. I therefore hope that the Committee will reject the amendment and support the Bill as it stands.