If the noble Lord will bear with me for a minute, I will see whether we can clarify that. In the meantime, I point to Clause 29, which ensures that senior management of private military contractors are personally liable for offences committed by their organisations if they consented or connived in the offence. This ensures that senior managers cannot escape the consequences of the actions of their organisations if they were personally involved in them—another reassurance.
I am also concerned that the amendment might have unintended consequences for this and other legislation. By making explicit reference to embedded forces and private military contractors in the Bill, we could risk creating doubt and confusion in the interpretation of both the Bill and other legislation. That is a general point that I have made already in relation to other amendments.
Turning to Amendment 9—forgive me for having to go through this in this degree of detail, but I think it is helpful ahead of Report—this suggests a new clause on reporting to Parliament on military measures. The joint military cultural property protection working group, which has been mentioned, is already working to review the current cultural property protection training within the UK Armed Forces. Those forces already act as if bound by the Hague convention, and respect for cultural property is upheld across the UK’s Armed Forces in military law, targeting policy, training, in-battle area evolution and assessment.
This review will ensure that we are fully compliant with all military obligations, including Article 7 under the Hague convention and its two protocols. This will be complemented once the UK becomes a high contracting party, which I think is three months after Royal Assent, with an implementation report every four years, as required by UNESCO, giving information of all the measures being taken to fulfil our obligations under the convention. Article 7 is one of a number of issues outlined by UNESCO which national authorities may wish to take into account when preparing their national reports. Having looked at this, I believe that these two reports will be sufficient to monitor our obligations under the convention and its protocols and to ensure they are fulfilled following ratification.
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We talked about the working group at some length at Second Reading. It was established to develop the concept of a unit of cultural property protection specialists in accordance with our obligations under Article 7(2) of the convention. Some preliminary work has already been completed on this unit by Army command. It is expected that it will be able to form up 12 to 18 months after formal approval.