Armed Forces Bill

There is no need to include such a provision, as I shall explain. It is inconceivable that a commanding officer would not want to take up their right to submit circumstances to a prosecuting authority. In the remaining time available, I want to deal with some of the more detailed points that the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) made so powerfully. He spoke of the need for powers to deal with serious offences during operations, which is probably the most serious point in our debate on these matters. Perhaps my explanation of the current situation will inform his conclusions in the Lobby later. UK forces developed a shooting investigation policy for high-tempo operations in Iraq that was so successful that they adopted the same model in Afghanistan. It has led to fewer but better targeted service police investigations. It allows COs to decide that there is no suggestion of an offence and to delay service police investigation until the operational tempo permits it. Nothing in the Bill is inconsistent with that procedure. Under the Bill, the CO will still have to make the service police aware of serious offences as soon as is possible and reasonably practicable. I hope that that assures the hon. Gentleman that we will not draw people away from high-tempo operations during important tours of duty.