My Lords, I shall not keep the House long with these amendments. Noble Lords will recall that on Report my noble friend Lord Lexden questioned why the list of service disciplinary offences in what is now Clause 166 did not include all historic enactments criminalising buggery in the Armed Forces. I would like to thank my noble friend for bringing this matter to the Government’s attention. Having examined it further, we agree that the list of naval offences should reach back to the Navy Act 1661. I should stress that the various enactments cited in Amendments 3 to 6 include offences which would still be covered by the criminal law today, notably bestiality. Accordingly, it is important to emphasise again that these posthumous pardons would be granted to a person convicted of an offence only where their actions would not be illegal under current law.
We are aware that that there may be parallel offences that applied to Army personnel which predate the Army Act 1881. In the time available since Report we have not been able to identify all the relevant statutes, but we are continuing to research this issue. If there are further offences to be added to the list, we will explore the best means of achieving this.
The other amendments in this group are minor technical and consequential ones. I beg to move.