Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

I am grateful to the Minister. A surprising and extraordinary fact about me is that I served in national service during the Suez campaign and became a gunner officer. That simply shows the disadvantages of national service, and is a grotesque example. However, it means that I am familiar, as the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, indicated, with the importance of not hobbling, fettering or otherwise bridling or limiting the powers of the Armed Forces in their extraordinarily important mission and duties. I am fully aware of that. I am also fully aware of the fact that this power would be used not frequently but rarely and sparingly. I do not understand why the amendment would be considered to be imposing any significant burden. All it requires is that the officer, "““informs the detainee of the facts which are the foundation of the decision””." We know already—the Joint Committee has pointed it out, and the Minister has referred to it in correspondence—that Army personnel are quite properly trained on how to do that. I am sure that the Minister would agree that it would be bad practice not to do so. If you exercise a coercive power, there should be some factual basis for doing so. If there is one, one should, without the complications of legal matters, be able to tell the individual the basis on which the power is being exercised. As the Armed Forces are trained in how to do it, and since it is not a legalistic amendment, I cannot understand why it would be objectionable. If the Minister said that it is not necessary to include it in the Bill because it will be made perfectly clear in prescribed guidance to the Armed Forces that this is what they should do in practice, that would give some flexibility and would not involve insertion in primary legislation. That might be a sensible way of dealing with the problem. I see no reason why published guidance—it would need to be published, so citizens would know where they were—could not achieve the same objective. It would not technically be prescribed by law, but I do not think the European Court of Human Rights would worry about that, if the guidance was authorised by a Minister and was clearly prescribed in that sense.