UK Parliament / Open data

Armed Forces Bill

Proceeding contribution from Patrick Mercer (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Monday, 22 May 2006. It occurred during Debate on bills on Armed Forces Bill.
It is a hard question to answer, but I am doing my best to answer it as honestly as I can. I have never been in circumstances where there is a pressing series of operations, one after another, against a determined enemy, with pauses out of the line where one needs to deal with this sort of discipline. But my father and my grandfather did. They faced such operations. Neither was a commanding officer, but they were infantry majors, and they felt the need to be able to use summary powers to deal with similar serious offences. That was a long time ago. I can imagine circumstances where the commanding officer at a high tempo of operations will need those powers. If I may put the point to bed, those powers are important, they will rarely be used, but when they are used, as in the case of the commanding officer of 2RTR, they should not be challenged. My final point is that the relationship between a regimental commander, of whatever cap badge, and the police, is always difficult. It is difficult for people who have not served to understand the feeling of the regimental family. The regimental family is the building brick upon which the army is built. No matter what assaults are being made on that system at the moment, the fact remains that the battalion, 600 to 900 men, know and understand each other. Up until the new reforms that have been introduced recently, battalions could guarantee that they all came from the same territorial area. To introduce the Royal Military Police, or their equivalent, into the chain of command at this stage, is to cut away at the authority and trust that subordinate commanders have in their commanding officers. It will be a detrimental move if the Royal Military Police, or their equivalent, the service police, are used in preference to the commanding officer, who, as has been said, will always refer to the legal authorities. That injures the regimental relationship— the same relationship as on a warship or an airfield—and I ask the Government to think carefully about the matter and to take it no further.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
446 c1265-6 
Session
2005-06
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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