UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1139-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

DEFENCE COMMITTEE

 

 

TRI-SERVICE ARMED Forces BILL

 

 

Wednesday 27 October 2004

MR JULIAN MILLER, MRS TERESA JONES, CAPTAIN PETER CRABTREE, BRIGADIER STEPHEN ANDREWS, AIR COMMODORE DUSTY AMROLIWALA and MR HUMPHREY MORRISON

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 101

 

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Defence Committee

on Wednesday 27 October 2004

Members present

Mr Bruce George, in the Chair

Mr James Cran

Mr David Crausby

Mike Gapes

Mr Mike Hancock

Mr Dai Havard

Rachel Squire

Mr Peter Viggers

________________

Memorandum submitted by the Ministry of Defence

 

Examination of Witnesses

 

Witnesses: Mr Julian Miller, Director General Service Personnel Policy, Mrs Teresa Jones, Head of Armed Forces Bill Team, Captain Peter Crabtree RN OBE, Armed Forces Bill Team, Brigadier Stephen Andrews CBE, Director Personnel Services (Army), Air Commodore Dusty Amroliwala OBE, Director Personnel and Training Policy (RAF), and Mr Humphrey Morrison, Legal Adviser, Ministry of Defence, examined.

Q1 Chairman: Thank you very much for coming. This is a long-awaited meeting. Peter Viggers and I were on the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill many years ago, expecting this proposal at least a decade ago, although I notice that the phraseology is different. In the early Nineties, there was talk of consolidation; now it is harmonisation. Can you tell me the difference between consolidation and harmonisation and why it has taken so long for either of them to appear before the House, albeit not yet in final form?

Mr Miller: I am happy to take up those two points. Consolidation was indeed identified in the Nineties as being an issue, the point then being to try to bring together the various disparate changes to legislation which had happened over numerous years. It was a tidying-up exercise. What we then looked at subsequently, and the SDR flagged this up in 1998, was the need to have a single system of Service law, so rather than simply tidying up three separate Acts, to recognise that particularly as joint organisations, joint operations became more important, it was desirable that all Service personnel should be under the same legal system and not have to chop and change as they moved from one part of the armed force structure to another. That led us to decide that a single Act was appropriate, and that is where we are now; that is really what harmonisation, as you refer to it, sets out for our aim. You mention that this has been a long time coming. Of course we recognise that. In 2001, my predecessor ---

Q2 Chairman: It goes back much further than that, I can tell you.

Mr Miller: In 2001, when we had recognised that harmonisation and the Single Act was the way ahead, we started to build up the team and to get to grips with the scale and complexity of the task we were setting ourselves. I think it is worth saying at the outset that this has been very much an MoD-wide exercise. It has involved the Services from the outset as a joint effort to produce an approved system of law, which they are keen to see us introduce. This has resulted in us setting up a team at the centre of the department with full Service representation and working very closely with the staffs of the three principal personnel officers as well as the legal advisers, but it is a demanding task, a big task. As you know, it is going to be a large Bill, and it raises issues of policy, which I suppose are inevitable as one tries to bring together the way the three separate Services have done their business in the past and find a future with which they are comfortable.

Q3 Chairman: Fifteen years is a pretty long time, even by the standards of the MoD. We were told in 1991, and probably earlier, and I can recall when Peter Viggers was Chairman of the Armed Forces Bill Committee it was a matter or urgency when we were relatively young men and we had the lamest of excuses. The best was: oh, well, they have seconded a Treasury specialist to us and he went back. Obviously, the removal of that guy brought the whole thing to an end. Maybe you could drop us a note and tell us why if it was urgent then, 15 years ago, did not the Ministry of Defence do anything about it. Teresa, maybe you were around monitoring us in those days. Can you recall why it has taken so long?

Mrs Jones: I was Head of Mobility in 1990-91 when we produced that Armed Forces Act. It was the Select Committee on that Bill that particularly gave impetus to the idea of consolidation rather than harmonisation. A lot of work, I would say, went into consolidating the three discipline Act to the extent - and Humphrey Morrison will correct me if I am wrong - that there was a first draft of that Bill. That work was overtaken by two things really: one was the need to make changes to Armed Forces' legislation that arose out of the Human Rights Act in 1998, so we had the Armed Forces Discipline Bill in 2000 and the Armed Forces Bill in 2001; and the second thing was obviously the Strategic Defence Review, which changed the emphasis from consolidation, which is a tidying up that Julian Miller mentioned, to a complete review of the Service Discipline Acts. The work in doing that review means that we are looking at not just the discipline proposals but the proposals throughout the three Service Acts, some of which, I have to say, have not been looked at probably at all since 1955. That is one of the reasons why it was such a massive project.

Q4 Chairman: Thank you very much. That seems, at first sight a plausible explanation. When is the Government committed to doing all this?

Mr Miller: We are committed to bringing the Bill to the House next year and to parliamentary process, this Committee, enacting it the following year. We would then expect it to take some time, once legislation has been agreed, to bring the detailed application into force, but certainly by 2008, we would expect the great majority of the new arrangements to be in place.

Q5 Chairman: You are rushing then! I hope I am around to see the end product of this speedy process. Can you tell us why it is so wide? The MoD is not responsible for many pieces of legislation. Is it because you feel you do not have the skills or whatever, and suddenly a mammoth piece of legislations comes and you are not quite ready for something of this magnitude?

Mr Miller: It is certainly true that it is a much larger piece of legislation than the Department routinely deals with, and it is a very ambitious piece of legislation, but we have the right skills in place. We have built up a team since 2001 to its present size. We now have a team led by Humphrey Morrison with lawyers within the MoD who are concentrating on this; we have five lawyers dealing with it and an Armed Forces Bill team of seven lead by Teresa Jones with Service representation, as well as the contributions from other parts of Department. Of course, at this stage, as the drafting process is now underway, we have four parliamentary counsel.

Q6 Chairman: Are they going to stay? Is it going to be recalled or torpedoed as in the early Nineties?

Mr Miller: We are pretty confident now, Chairman, that this will proceed to the production of a full Bill, which will be brought to the House next year.

Q7 Chairman: In terms of consultation, will you let us have a look at it for, hopefully, pre‑legislative scrutiny?

Mr Miller: We had seen the memorandum we have already given you for this hearing setting this process in train. We would certainly expect to come back to you with more progress reports as the development of the Bill progresses and deal with any questions that you have.

Q8 Mr Viggers: I think I heard you say that you have four parliamentary draftsmen annexed to this. You do have a commitment, do you, from their department that they will maintain the people there because it is a peculiar operation, as I understand it. I fully understand the complexity of the system. It is really very difficult for a team to do this. It really needs to be one person to be responsible. You have the commitment from the parliamentary draftsmen?

Mr Miller: We have the commitment and a work plan which we have agreed with parliamentary counsel, which will deliver the product by the time needed next year.

Q9 Mr Viggers: The main argument put forward for a single system of Service law is that it is more appropriate for joint operations. Can you say whether specific problems have arisen in the past which have caused you to feel this is now an urgent issue?

Mr Miller: It is a joint operation. It is also the operation of joint units where it may be difficult to have a single Service clearly in the lead and therefore to determine which system of law applies and when somebody from one Service joins such a joint unit, arrangements have to be put in place to allow discipline to apply to them from their own Service. The conduct of joint operations does indeed add some complications and ad hoc arrangements would be needed - for example, the Falklands and Iraq - to provide sensible disciplinary arrangements, which would be very much simpler and more directly dealt with if there was a single system of law. If it would be helpful, we can certainly give you a note, for example, on some of those arrangements.

Chairman: Yes, please do that.

Q10 Mr Viggers: The attachment regulations do not apply to fully joint units, as we understand it. Did you give consideration to changing the attachment regulations to give commanding officers such powers rather than to move forward to a joint decision?

Mr Miller: We did look at the attachment approach and decided that it did not really meet the underlying requirement to have all Service personnel subject to a constant and understood single system. Perhaps I could ask Mr Morrison to elaborate.

Mr Morrison: Quite simply, using the attachment regulations does not get rid of the basic problem that members of each Service are subject to different procedures, powers, penalties and so on. If you start applying attachment, it simply means, let us say if a solder becomes attached to the Navy, whereas as a solider he would not be subject to the possibility of summary dismissal, as a sailor he does, so attachment does not resolve the differences in the law but instead imposes on people changes in their legal position when they move to join the other system or the other Service. In practice, as a result, attachment has never been used effectively, and indeed the Services are very reluctant that it should be used because each attachment involves a change in the legal position of the person attached, which is then changed again when that person moves back again to his or her own Service. It obviously is particularly difficult where you have a joint unit where it is not possible to say which Service ought to be the one which characterised that unit. If you have a joint Army, Navy and Air Force unit, which law is to apply? Should it be the Army; should it be the Navy; should it be the Air Force? If it does not matter which one applies, then why have all these minor differences between the laws and the penalties and powers and so on that do apply? The obvious logic is that if you can swap people round between Services, at least make them subject to the same laws all the time.

Q11 Mr Viggers: There is reference to the Defence Procurement Agency and the Defence Logistics Organisation which says that a revised structure for command authority will extend to these organisations. How can that be when they are basically civilian organisations? What will the implication be for those two organisations?

Mr Miller: Within those agencies, there are many military personnel operating and some of those agencies can be led my military officers. What we would expect is that the introduction of the single system of Service law under the TSA would make it easier for disciplinary arrangements as they apply to Service personnel operating in those structures to be simplified and to be effectively discharged, so that if someone is working in the DLO, rather than having to have disciplinary measures applied by a commander from their Service who might be outside that organisation, it would facilitate arrangements set up inside the organisation to apply discipline by the immediate chain of command.

Q12 Mr Viggers: Is there to be any change in the legal status of civilians?

Mr Miller: No.

Q13 Mr Hancock: Can I draw your attention to the issues raised in your memorandum, particularly around paragraph 25, which deals with harmonisation of offences and the way in which particularly the Royal Navy would see a significant narrowing of their ability to deal with matters. I am conscious that we are about to go to vote and unfortunately when we come back I will not be with you because I will be taking part in a debate, so I am not going to hear your answer, but I look forward to reading it. I would be interested to know if all three Services could identify those elements of the existing machine that you consider to be vital to your operational effectiveness. What are the issues affecting the Navy, because they are the ones who will have the most changes to deal with?

Mr Miller: We will make sure that you can read a full answer.

The Committee suspended from 3.13 pm to 3.37 pm for a division in the House

 

Mr Miller: I think Mr Hancock's question was referring particularly to the issue of harmonisation in paragraph 25 of our memorandum, which is looking at summary powers. His question was referring to the extent that the Navy has had to adjust and change particularly its arrangements for summary justice. Captain Crabtree will now elaborate.

Captain Crabtree: It is right to say that the Navy has given up a number of powers and that will be evident from the memorandum that we gave to you. We very carefully considered, in looking at what we were giving up, the prize, I suppose is the way you put it, of harmonisation, and we recognise there are significant benefits in that. We have also taken into account that the Bill, or the Act, will deliver benefits in other areas. While our summary powers will be reduced so that we will have an increase in the number of courts martial, we believe that is manageable because in other areas in the management of courts martial and in the composition of courts, there are changes that will improve the speed to courts martial and the nature of courts martial. It is a balancing exercise. When you look at that balance, the loss of influence, we believe, is manageable in the number of courts martial that can be generated from it.

Q14 Mr Viggers: How many extra courts martial do you anticipate there will be?

Captain Crabtree: Looking at the last three or four years, somewhere in the region of about 30 to 35 a year. In statistical terms, that is probably about a 50 per cent increase.

Q15 Mr Viggers: Have you made a calculation as to how many of those will be at sea?

Captain Crabtree: All courts martial at the moment, or from my time in the Service, have been conducted ashore of course. A number of the accused come from the sea. I would think about 50 per cent at the moment come from the sea. There will be a dozen or so ships where accused will go to courts martial and we will have to fit those courts martial around the ships' operational programme. If we have the ability to run courts more effectively and less resource intensive in, for example, the fact that our five-man courts that we have in the Navy in the future may result in a three-man court, or three-person court, that gives us more flexibility in composition and therefore being able to move quickly to a court martial.

Q16 Mr Viggers: I phrased my question in a rather slack way. I meant of course; how many of the offences which will end in courts martial start with an offence committed at sea? Much was made in previous meetings of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, I remember, of the operational difficulty that would be imposed if the offence happened at sea and it was not possible to be dealt with in a brisk and summary manner. How are you facing up to the operational difficulties there?

Captain Crabtree: My answer actually is probably in many respects the same because while I cannot give you a precise figure as to the number of offences that are committed at sea, while an individual is in the ship, a large number of individuals who go to courts martial are serving in ships and they commit offences while they are ashore or run ashore somewhere. The witnesses are from the ship, the accused is from the ship, the character witness may be an officer from the ship, and all those individuals will have to be removed from the ship. It is as much where the individual is serving and where the witnesses are as opposed to whether the offence is committed on board, for example. A percentage of offences certainly are committed on board. I can come back and give you an illustration for any one particular year, if you would like that.

Q17 Mr Viggers: My concern, of course, is that a case which was previously being handled in a summary manner will now lead to a court martial later and this, as it were, causes a cloud to hang over the accused, and indeed no doubt the witnesses and everyone else involved. How are you going to cope with that?

Captain Crabtree: We recognise precisely that problem, which is why I mentioned the balancing exercise previously. Part of that balancing exercise was the advantages that would be delivered by harmonisation. Part of the balancing exercise was the improvement to the courts martial process that will deliver more expeditious courts martial, so that we will not have to wait three or four or six months, or whatever it may be. We have selected the powers we want to retain, and they have been agreed by all three Services, on the basis that these are the powers and punishments and the offences that most frequently occur. Where we have given up powers and offences, that is on the basis of a very careful statistical analysis and discussion with our lawyers and our commanders to identify what we can give up with least difficulty. As I say, it is something in the region of about 30 trials, but we believe that is manageable for the greater prize.

Q18 Mr Viggers: How many people are taken off duties because they are to be subject to a summary trial or a court martial in due course? I assume a small number will be confined, will be locked up, a very small number. Others may be taken off duties. Have you worked out how many in total will be taken off duties under the new regime and have you got the numbers taken off duties in the previous regime?

Captain Crabtree: I think it is fair to say that there should be no change in that respect. If an individual has committed an offence which results in him going to summary trial, then if he deserves to be locked up because there is a concern about whether he will absent himself or commit further offences - Bail Act type considerations - and those apply whether it is a summary trial or court martial type matter. As far as moving people off ship to wait for trial, I do not think there will be any great change. There might be changes in terms of two or three people but not many, and that was a factor that we took into account again in deciding what powers we could afford to give up and what offences we would want to retain as available to the CO. I think we have optimised what the Navy can afford to agree to in what is a harmonised package.

Q19 Mr Cran: I am going to ask a few questions about the Army, in which I am quite interested, and so I guess it is you, Brigadier, I am looking at. The Committee is quite interested in the practical effects of your proposals at the level of the commanding officer, as it were. I take an old-fashioned view that whenever you have new legislation, it means work for everybody. The point I think the Committee would be quite interested to know is: how many additional summary cases, I suppose one could say, a year will commanding officers have to deal with? Is it possible to compute that?

Brigadier Andrews: I do not think that there is really any science that would let us give you a reliable figure, but I can say confidently that it would be very few. The Bill is constructed on the basic powers that a commanding officer in the Army, and indeed in the Royal Air Force, already has. The maximum penalty that the commanding officer can impose has been extended and of course the range of offences the commanding officer may deal with summarily has been extended. I think that we would see commanding officers exercising their judgment based on the advice and using much the same judgment as they do now about which offences they should deal with summarily and which offences they should refer to higher authority with a view to trial by court martial. Whilst this Bill and these powers may well allow a few more offences to be dealt with summarily, those cases where it is within the commanding officer's capability based on the legal advice he received, I think a commanding officer in the Army will recognise these powers and it is very much business as usual.

Q20 Mr Cran: I would like to be clear - and maybe my colleagues are there before me - why it is that you are quite so confident. I am not arguing with you. I am just seeking your rationale, as it were. Why do you come to the conclusion, and I quote as I took the words down, your legislation will allow "only a few more cases". I want to know why you are confident that is going to be so.

Brigadier Andrews: The list of offences that the commanding officer may deal with has been extended. Most of those offences are potentially serious offences. Of course, the commanding officer there has to make the same decision as he has to make now. He has to decide whether this is something that should properly be dealt with by him, the commanding officer, essentially in-house, or whether it is something that is so serious that it should be dealt with by the Army as a corporate body. I think he will apply the same judgement as he applies now to that. There will be an number of these cases in the new list that perhaps, having consulted higher authority, he feels that he can properly deal with, in which case he will, in which case there is a price here that is well worth paying in terms of justice delivered quickly and fairly.

Q21 Mr Cran: Let us assume for a minute, just to test what you are saying to me, that you are wrong. I am not saying you will be but just let us assume you might be and that it is going to result in rather more pressure on the commanding officers as you have alluded to in the answers you have just given. Is there going to be any consideration given to giving commanding officers more resources, whatever it is that is needed to deal with, if I am correct in saying there might be, an increase in these summary cases?

Brigadier Andrews: If I may, I need to bring you up to date on another important reform that we are in the process of introducing into the Army, and that is that from 1 January next year commanding officers in the Army and company commanders, that is sub-unit commanders, will deal with a very wide range of really low level disciplinary matters. The sort of things like poor turnout and late on parade, which are currently dealt with summarily under the Army Act, will be dealt with administrativly. There will be a regime of minor sanctions applied. We hope that that will reduce the number of summary dealing cases by about 50 per cent in the Army. That is certainly my hope as the Policy Director responsible. Were there to be a small increase in the number of cases and perhaps more complex cases that a commanding officer dealt with summarily under the new Act, I do not think that that would be a burden on him at all. Of course these are tried, tested and respected procedures, so I do not see that there would be a difficulty there.

Mr Cran: I am very grateful. That could not have been clearer.

Q22 Mr Crausby: I have some similar questions to those of James Cran about the Army but mine are aimed at the RAF. First, how many, if any, additional summary cases a year will RAF commanding officers have to deal with under the proposals? Is it like the Army, very few, or is it a different situation?

Air Commodore Amroliwala: It is almost exactly the same as the Army. I think the only thing that separates us is the regime that the Brigadier has just described of introducing a greater range of administrative sanctions that is already in place in the Royal Air Force. There is also, at the same time, a growing movement towards using administrative outcomes and disposals wherever that is practically possible. At the time when there is the potential for a greater range of summary matters to be put before a commanding officer, there is, on the other side, a greater tendency, right across the Service, to use administrative procedures wherever they are practically possible and appropriate to use. To a greater or lesser extent, we see the two being self-balancing in the final event.

Q23 Mr Crausby: So that there would be no need for additional resources at all and you feel that we will be able to cope with them in the same way?

Air Commodore Amroliwala: We foresee no need for additional resources as an outcome of this harmonisation.

Q24 Mike Gapes: Brigadier Andrews, can I take you up on what you have just said? You have said that you were going to move towards a system of low level administrative dealing with minor offences presumably. As I understand it, the summary hearings before a commanding officer are not considered compliant with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, whereas courts martial are. Would these administrative hearings be compliant?

Brigadier Andrews: Yes, I am confident that they would be, and I think I need to explain a little more here. This is administrative action for really very low level, very minor, non‑criminal maters. If I could add, we are absolutely confident that summary dealing, as it stands now, as it is provided for in this Bill, is compliant with Article 6 of the Convention, but certainly our administrative action of course has been framed in line with the Human Rights Act, in line with all the good principles and best practice of modern employment law, but these really are very low level, professional shortcomings - people who are late on parade, have not turned up for work, they have dirty boots, perhaps their rifles are dirty and have not been properly cleaned at the end of the day. They are matters which are not deserving of the full weight of the criminal law, which, after all, is what summary dealing is. What we are dealing with here is a minor shortcoming which is dealt with very quickly; a minor sanction is awarded with the whole purpose of setting straight that shortcoming.

Q25 Mike Gapes: Would the individuals concerned have a right of appeal to a higher level?

Brigadier Andrews: Of course, yes, the right of review is built into that procedure. That right of review can be exercised as quickly as possible.

Q26 Mike Gapes: They could actually then go to a summary process or not?

Brigadier Andrews: No, they would not be given the option of saying, "No, I insist on my right to a summary hearing here". No, they would not. I would have to defer to my learned friends here, but I think in Convention terms we are talking about issues which really do not get above the criminal threshold here. Of course we are after something that is open, fair and can be delivered in a very timely, effective and appropriate way. We are absolutely confident that it would meet the scrutiny of a Human Rights lawyer.

Q27 Mike Gapes: I hope that is the case. Given the way in which human rights lawyers are able to reinterpret legislation, we will wait and see. Can I therefore take it a bit further? As I understand it, at present round about 14,000 cases are dealt with by summary hearings or trials in the Army and about 400 to 500 are dealt with by courts martial?

Brigadier Andrews: Yes.

Q28 Mike Gapes: Given the point that I have already made about whether there is compliance or not with the European Court of Human Rights, could you explain why you feel it is right that commanding officers would have to deal with more cases which might be of greater complexity as a result of the overall changes, not what we have just been taking about, and with more extensive sentencing powers? Would this not leave you open, if you are moving a substantial part of this workload which currently is dealt with in a way which is compliant with the European Court, towards one which is not? Would this not lead to greater problems in the future?

Brigadier Andrews: I think I must defer to Mr Morrison on that point.

Mr Miller: Chairman, may I first pick up the point Mr Gapes made earlier about compliance and summary process and say that the key issue there, which Humphrey I am sure will elaborate on, is that it is part of a broader process of law, so that no-one is obliged to be subject to summary justice; they have the right to elect trial by a court martial, and indeed the Tri-Service Act will extend that throughout the three Services.

Q29 Mike Gapes: Does that apply in those cases which have been dealt with at the administrative level as well?

Mr Morrison: I think the easiest way to describe this is as follows. It is best to see a division between the criminal law, which includes summary jurisdiction, and that sort of action which is akin to what an employer can do anywhere to his employee: give him a bad report, not promote him to a higher job, that sort of thing. It is that latter area for which the expression "administrative action" is used by the Services. It has always been there as an alternative, sometimes an additional element, in reporting on people, in dealing with their minor failures and their successes in their career. It is quite separate from the issue of the compliance of the criminal law and criminal procedures with the ECHR. As far as the criminal element is concerned, that does cover court martial trial and it does cover and require compliance with the system of summary discipline. We take the view, and we have been to leading counsel for advice on it, that not only does the existing system meet the requirements for compliance, by virtue, as Julian has said, of the right to elect trial by court martial where, if they choose that method, the court martial then uses only the power that would have been available to the CO, and also by the availability of a right of appeal to a compliant summary appeal court. The result of that system, in our view, renders the criminal jurisdiction of the Armed Forces compliant and we are happy that the small changes that we are making to that will, if anything, improve the system, make it more easily explicable because it will more consistent and to that degree fairer and, as Julian has mentioned, it will remove a small limitation that exists under the naval legislation on the right to elect. That is separate and the ECHR issues relating to that are separate from the question of administrative action, employers' action, where the remedies for any administrative action that a person is unhappy with is through the system known as redress. In some cases there is also for the Services access to the civil courts, in particular employment tribunals, if, for example, some sort of administrative action was taken against someone - they were not promoted or got a black mark because of discrimination. Where there is discrimination, they can go direct to outside courts. That, if you like, forms a separate, coherent whole, but does not give rise to the questions of compliance that relate to the criminal jurisdiction.

Q30 Mike Gapes: Can I take that a bit further? As a government legal officer or legal adviser, do you have any reservations about moving towards more summary processes?

Mr Morrison: The extent of jurisdiction to the extension of powers as far as the Navy is concerned: no, in fact we went to leading counsel with the exact details of what we were proposing to ask if he considered that it increased the risk of non-compliance over the current situation at all. He obviously gave a detailed reply but he summed it up as "not one jot".

Q31 Mike Gapes: If it was argued that moving towards a system whereby more cases were being dealt with by COs who were not independent and were being dealt with without legal representation for the accused, which is why it is thought that summary hearings are not compliant with Article 6, you see no problem in that? You do not think that that is liable to lead to more legal challenges in the European Court of Human Rights?

Mr Morrison: No, because of the existence of the two factors which are regarded as the essential safeguard, which make the summary system compliant overall: the right to elect and the right of appeal to a compliant court called the summary appeal court. It is those two factors which are regarded as making a system which is, if you like, rough and ready at first hearings, overall compliant with Article 6 of the ECHR.

Q32 Mr Havard: May I ask a supplementary? Maybe this is a daft question but I will ask it. If the Army is now going to make this change to administrative action rather than have summary hearings, so it is going to run its business more efficiently or more effectively maybe, if that has been the case, why was this not done before? If administrative actions could have been taken to save on all these summary hearings, why now and why not before?

Brigadier Andrews: I think that our disciplinary policy, like the law, has evolved, that the Armed Forces Discipline Act introduced a new, very structured way of conducting summary hearings. It introduced some very important safeguards, which Mr Morrison has set out. I think it made the whole process for one summary case just about as much as one individual, supported by his unit administrators, could reasonably deal with, and it does do that. Summary dealing I think, certainly in the Army and I am sure in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, is respected as being fair. We know it is respected as being fair by what our people tell us and by the fact that the appeal rate is so low. We then have to ask ourselves: are we using these very precious powers in an appropriate way? Is there a better way of upholding good order and military discipline, especially with regard to those low level matters which are not really wholly deserving of the full weight of these procedures? We looked at that very carefully with our legal officers and we came to the conclusion, the Army Board came to the conclusion, that there was a better way of doing it. The Royal Air Force recognised this and that is what we are introducing now. The Army has welcomed this very warmly indeed. It will put disciplinary power, low level power, effective power, back in the hands of our junior commanders so that they can deal with professional shortcomings there and then. As we say in the Army: discipline at the point of leadership.

Q33 Mr Havard: It is not because it is more efficient, the Treasury word - "effective" means it works and "efficient" means it is cost-effective and you save money - or because you did not have previous confidence in, enough training and support for, the people lower down to be able to do it properly?

Brigadier Andrews: Not at all. We, of course, are interested in good order and military discipline and we are interested in the most efficient and effective way of upholding good order and military discipline and we put in place what we think are reasonable and effective changes. We have reformed. I think we have now moved with the landscape as modern employers.

Q34 Mr Viggers: There have been some offences which, for practical purposes, have been triable summarily in the Royal Navy because the Royal Navy ships are away from home, which are now to be extended to the Air Force and the Army. These are listed in Appendix 1 to Annex D. One of these offences is assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Does this require commanding officers to get involved in the issue of compensation, as would be the case in civilian courts?

Captain Crabtree: We deal at summary level with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, as with any of the offences on that list, on the basis of legal advice which is given to the CO and only when it is a simple offence of that nature. Of course, assault occasioning actual bodily harm can be straightforward or it can be serious; the penalties are of a significant range. When we have an assault occasioning actual bodily harm, as with a common assault when there might be an injury, we have given our COs at the moment limited powers of compensation but, before they exercise those powers, they take legal advice. They also have written guidance, which is exactly the guidance that lay magistrates operate to in the magistrates' court, for example. I recognise, of course, they may have a legally qualified clerk sitting with them. As I say, our COs also take legal advice. That is something we wanted to preserve in the Bill and we have taken it forward as a proposal, which has been accepted within the constraints of a limited sum of money and on the basis of a requirement for legal advice to be made available.

Q35 Mr Viggers: I am not sure whether the briefing material we have been given so far lists the number of occasions when compensation has been given and the range of compensation. If we have already been given this information in the briefing note, I apologise. If we have not, I would be grateful if we could be.

Captain Crabtree: The number of assaults occasioning actual bodily harm cases dealt with summarily ranges, over the last three years, between three or five and eight, so it is only a very limited number of cases that commanding officers are dealing with of that nature. Serious ones go, of course, to courts martial because of their nature.

Q36 Mr Viggers: Are the Army and the Royal Air Force content that their commanding officers will be given these powers of compensation as you describe?

Brigadier Andrews: Yes, the powers are forthcoming and certainly we already have a provision for criminal injuries overseas. Yes, I would anticipate, as Captain Crabtree has just been talking about, the very few cases and they would be cases which would be hallmarked by their straightforwardness.

Q37 Mr Viggers: I suppose the question was rather simple. What I should have asked is: because everybody likes being given power, are the Army and the Air Force content that their commanding officers will be capable of exercising this with some advice?

Air Commodore Amroliwala: If I can answer for the Royal Air Force, I have no doubt at all that they will be content and competent to exercise the power. As the Brigadier has already said, we are already involved in overseas locations with criminal injuries compensation as a matter of course in the event in those locations.

Q38 Mr Viggers: Another offence which the Army and Royal Air Force commanding officers will have the power to deal with include carrying articles with a point or blade in a public place and possession of an offensive weapon. Those are listed in Appendix 1 to Annex D at page 25 of the memorandum. These are regarded as extremely serious by the police and civil magistrates and in the civil court and often lead to imprisonment. Is it appropriate that commanding officers who have only limited powers of detention should deal with these cases?

Air Commodore Amroliwala: If the circumstances of the case were such that the likely outcome would attract a sentence which was in excess of that available to the commanding officer, then in my view it would not be more appropriate and nor would the commanding officer deal with that offence in the first place. Like all of these offences on the schedule and all others that are dealt with, they fall within a range of seriousness and it will only be in that area where it is appropriate that commanders should deal with these, that he will do so. I cannot understand you could foresee any circumstances in which an incident which might attract a custodial sentence, the order that you describe, would ever come near a commanding officer's table to deal with.

Q39 Mr Viggers: There is another range of difficulties. For instance, the obtaining of Services by deception, fraudulent use of a telephone, obtaining property by deception: these might involve using credit or a bank card, perhaps on the internet, which could require considerable forensic and technical resources. Have you addressed the issue of whether commanding officers will have the resources that are needed to try those offences?

Mr Miller: Could I just offer a general observation on the additional offences and how they relate to the existing offences? As Dusty Amroliwala was indicating, a number of the existing offences already potentially include quite complex charges and carry quite severe penalties. The additional list really is quite similar in terms of the range of potential complexity and sentence that it carries. In all those cases, old and new, there will have to be made a judgment as to whether it is sensible and realistic for a commanding officer on legal advice to deal with it. Only where the case is towards the simpler end of the spectrum under that offence would we expect the commanding officer to be taking it forward summarily. For those both existing and new offences, in the case of the Army and the Air Force, where there is a degree of complexity of the sort you describe, then you would certainly expect that to be remitted by a 

higher authority to a court martial.

Captain Crabtree: I think, Mr Viggers, it is worth saying that that is precisely the approach the Navy takes at the moment. We would not conceive of dealing with a bladed article or offensive weapon case where there were any of the aggravating circumstances which would lead the criminal courts to a sentence of imprisonment, so it would have to be right at the bottom of the range. The law is clear and the advice to COs would be clear in that area, as it would be in other areas in relation to the offences on that list. There are safeguards in place to ensure that only those that are capable of being dealt with by a CO are dealt with, and others go to court martial.

Q40 Mr Havard: If I could turn to the question of courts martial, in the memorandum we have had from the Ministry of Defence, it talks about a number of things but it talks about a single prosecuting authority and it also talks about defence arrangements as still being considered. We do not know exactly what shape or form they are going to take. Could you give us an update on the development of these elements?

Mr Miller: The single prosecuting authority is something which we think makes sense when we have a single system of Service law. We would expect the Naval Judge Advocate in effect to be wound in to the Judge Advocate General. I am being corrected. Let Mr Morrison correct me publicly.

Mr Morrison: Obviously the three separate prosecution authorities, the Army, Navy and the Air Force prosecuting authorities, it is proposed should be replaced by one authority. The powers and function of that authority will be very much the same as the powers currently exercised separately by the three authorities. The authority will also have the same degree at least of independence, which is regarded as an essential element of the role of the authority. The big difference will be obviously that his or her staff will be tri-Service; they will be lawyers, prosecutors, from all three Services. The creation of that single law authority flows, I think logically, from having a single system of Service law and ensures that we do not, by retaining separate administrative organisms, face the COs with the difficulty that while they are applying one system of law and they have got over that hurdle, they then have to deal with three separate authorities, depending on the Service of the people under their command. In very broad terms, accepting that you will have one person instead of three, the statutory provisions should look almost the same, if not the same, as the provisions that you have at the moment in each of the separate Acts.

Q41 Mr Havard: Can I ask then what the response of the three Services is to this currently? You give me the answer.

Mrs Jones: This is a proposal that has been agreed with the three Services.

Q42 Mr Havard: I understand the principle of it being that is agreed, but the whole question of how it is to work and its relative competencies is presumably still in play. What is the response of each of the Services to that?

Captain Crabtree: If I can talk from a naval perspective, we have no difficulty whatsoever. We think joint institutions are a fundamental part of taking a harmonised system forward, so we have no difficulty at all with a joint prosecuting authority, which will prosecute all offenders, matters having been referred to the prosecution authority for consideration. It will add, at the very least, to consistency of approach and fairness.

Q43 Mr Havard: For the record, we will hear what each of the Services has to say.

Air Commodore Amroliwala: I do not think I can add a great deal to that. There was a clear logic, following the work we are doing in terms of harmonisation, for the prosecution to come into a single body. I can only see benefit to the Service and the Services from such an approach.

Brigadier Andrews: I think the important point for us in all of this is that in Service courts there are Service prosecutors, and I think that the Bill sets out a framework for ensuring that prosecutions in military courts are informed by prosecutions which have a profound understanding of the context of the offences and of course of the public and Service interest.

Q44 Mr Havard: Given we have this list in Annex E, are we to see all of these elements then or only some of them actually coming forward in terms of the Bill? You describe in Annex E a number of elements that ought to be in the structure to which you are proposing to change. Are all these elements actually going to be in the Bill?

Mrs Jones: Not necessarily; there are some elements in the proposals that we have got which will not require primary legislation, but it is very important in framing the legislation that we understand the detail of how the system will work to ensure that we have the right things at primary legislation that will indeed support the secondary legislation that might be needed in certain areas. So the package that we have presented will include some things that are in primary legislation. The creation of a single prosecuting authority is a matter for primary legislation. The single Service prosecuting authorities at the moment are provided for in the separate discipline Acts. Therefore, clearly it will be right in the Tri-Service Act for that primary legislation to contain the provision for a single prosecuting authority. As for the way in which that prosecuting authority is organised, there will be some elements about the ability, for example, of the prosecuting authority to delegate its functions, which will be rightly contained in the primary legislation; other functions and how that prosecuting authority operates will not be a matter for primary legislation as now. The sort of work that we are still engaged on with a joint prosecuting authority will be looking very much at things like: where are they going to be located; how are the individuals going to operate within it. Those are not matters for legislation.

Q45 Mr Havard: If I could get behind the descriptive sides, the administrative structures and so on, one of the things we have been seeing recently in cases is that there is an interface between all of these agencies and other agencies, not the least of which is the civil police, for example, the civil criminal justice system, and the Lord Chancellor's role in all of that; we have also been seeing the question about how things are policed, evidence gathered, who actually brings prosecutions, how they conduct them, the evidence gathering process, all of that. It is a big agenda. Within it, if you are going to have a single prosecuting authority, I am old enough and I am afraid ugly enough to remember being around at the time of the setting up of the Crown Prosecution Service and arguing with Mrs Thatcher and others that they were getting it wrong. It was got wrong and it had to be changed several times. It was about the relationship between the police Services, various and different, across the country and local authorities being changed into a unified body that then brought prosecutions and the police Service then gathering evidence and going to the Crown Prosecution Service, and you know the structure. It seems to me as though you are proposing a similar sort of structure in essence here. Within that, there are obviously relationships. In administrative terms, who is collecting the evidence, who is deciding within a relative tariff whether or not something is administrative or should be dealt with summarily or should go to a court martial, whatever? This is the bread and butter; it is the guts of the process, is it not? This is the sort of stuff I think we want to see in terms of how the process is actually going to be constructed so that we have confidence that all these other relationships are right and how someone can appeal and say that the person presented the wrong evidence, got it wrong and it was dealt with in the wrong way. These are the issues that I am trying to get to here. Some of that needs to be statutory; maybe some of it not. That was a bit of a diatribe rather than a question but that is an area of concern. Any observations you have would be helpful.

Mr Miller: You have wrapped up a number of issues. Perhaps, to start with, Mr Morrison could say something about the relationship with the evidence gathering and collection.

Mr Morrison: Before I do that, may I just make one illustrative example about the idea of a joint prosecuting authority? At the moment, if Servicemen and Service women from different Services but perhaps within a joint regiment or joint command are accused of an offence together - they may be fighting each other or both are involved in doing something to some third person - and it is a serious offence, it goes from the CO up to the prosecuting authority. If one is a soldier and one is an airman, it goes to two separate prosecuting authorities and each has to decide separately what to do. One may take a view that it ought to be referred back to the CO to be dealt with by the CO or think there are appropriate charges, or whatever he or she thinks is the appropriate charge. The other may take a different view. At the moment, the separation of all the procedures and systems with different people looking at the same question but capable of reaching a different decision is an inhibition on efficient command and efficient and fair justice. The notion of combining them together is made possible because they are no longer applying separate rules; they are all supposed to be applying the same rules, and we trust that those rules will be applied in a general way consistently. It is that logic which leads us to a single prosecuting authority. As to the investigation of offences, the CO we envisage will, as at present, remain at the heart of the process. It is under the existing law the CO to whom offences are initially reported, and it is the CO who decides what to do next. What we do, however, envisage is a clarification of the use of provisions which we put in place in the 2001 Act which allows the prosecuting authorities to give direct advice to the Service police so they do their jobs more efficiently, and that will be brought more fully into the picture. We already have statutory provisions to allow it from the 2001 Act, as I say, but when the whole of the framework, the sort of issues that you are referring to are set out in the Bill, what you will see is a clearer reference to the prosecuting authorities being more closely involved at an early stage in helping the police in the investigation of offences, and the decision on least serious offences of what should be charged. The aim is to get, if you like, a more professional view and to avoid the situation in which the police, prior to the 2001 Act, had to act on their own and then sometimes found when they got to the prosecuting authorities that they said, "Well, you should have done this, you should look at that evidence. You should have spoken to this person" - etc, etc. So the aim is certainly closer co‑operation between Service police and the prosecuting authorities, particularly on obviously major offences, but that the CO will still remain at the heart of things. There are some important issues about how exactly the papers chains and the decision maker chains should work, and we certainly recognise that it is vital to avoid making these overcomplicated.

Q46 Mr Havard: Well, I think this is a question of more consistency or better consistency of advice and quality of advice and relationship with the policing Services because the Services themselves have separate arrangements, maybe not for today and not for the Bill, but there are concerns as you know from our inquiry into duty of care and all the rest of it and there is the question of the Service police, for example, and whether there should be verification of how that is consistent with other standards outside the Services and so on. So there are issues like that that will come elsewhere. But if the process here is a unified prosecution Service into which evidence is given and then decisions are made about whether or not it is sensible to prosecute, that is essentially what the Act is going to show, is it?

Mr Morrison: At the lower level, yes, most cases will still involve what one might call low level justice of the CO. Matters will still go straight to the CO and he will deal with them and the police may still not be involved in minor offences which will still come before the CO. But once you get into the more serious offences and the exact division still has to be agreed, there is a recognition of the importance of ensuring, if you like, that the prosecuting authority is brought in at an early enough stage to make sure that the right decision on charges, the right steps as to evidence, are taken. But that will not be affecting all the minor cases which the CO is looking at. So if you like in very crude terms there will be two routes: the very basic route which is still the CO controlling the whole system and the more sophisticated route which already exists with a view to court martial but in which we will try to bring the Service police and the prosecuting authority into a closer contact.

Q47 Mr Havard: Could I just ask you a question about the defence arrangements then, because this is the other area that is still not described. What sort of process is going to evolve there? What does it look like currently? When someone is charged subject to this, what are the defence arrangements likely to be?

Captain Crabtree: The arrangements differ in Service. In my own Service if you are charged with an offence and you are interviewed by the police you have the same rights that every citizen has to be able to contact a lawyer, to have that lawyer with you subject to the nature of the offence, and advise you. As far as representation at courts martial are concerned, you have the right within my Service to select a naval lawyer who would be outside your command chain so there was no issue of conflict of interest, or to elect to have a civilian lawyer, and at the moment at naval courts martial about 50 per cent of the individuals elect a naval lawyer and 50 per cent select civilians, so essentially naval personnel, as I am sure all Service personnel, have the same rights of access in terms of representation at courts martial and advice prior to interview by Service police officers.

Q48 Mr Havard: Have the other Services anything to add?

Brigadier Andrews: No.

Air Commodore Amroliwala: No.

In the absence of the Chairman, Mr Viggers took the Chair

Q49 Mr Havard: This whole question therefore about that structure, and it is a simple one in one sense but there may be a complicated answer, is about its consistency with the UK's obligations under the European Convention for Human Rights. There was a way of doing it in the past, and you are obviously reviewing it. Are you to have confidence that it will be consistent with these obligations and, if so, how?

Mr Miller: We have that confidence and we have been careful in taking advice from counsel as these proposals are developing across the piece and we would expect that the proposals which come forward in the Act next year will be compliant.

Mrs Jones: Could I add to that that we do not envisage that there will be statutory provision for a defence authority necessarily. The issue about defence arrangements is in particular not to restrict the rights that Service personnel, particularly in the Navy at the moment, have of choosing a naval officer to be there to act for them in a court martial, but there are issues clearly if we have a joint prosecuting authority - there are what I would I suppose refer to as professional and ethical considerations about people serving in the prosecuting authority then moving straight to a defence job or vice versa, and these are issues that we have to make sure we have appropriate safeguards in place for. They are not a matter for statute but they are matters on which we are in correspondence with the Bar Council and the Law Society. Our initial contacts with them have shown that they have no difficulty with the sort of arrangements that we would be proposing whereby Service personnel could still act as defending officers, but we need to make sure that there are safeguards in place so that there can be no possible appearance of a conflict of interest.

Q50 Mr Havard: That is my last question, in a sense. What it says in the memorandum is that, as far as the defence arrangements are concerned, this will probably not require statutory provision and we wanted to know why is that the case? Where have you got to? The word "probably" is here, it "probably will not", so that suggests that you are still having some discussions, or it is subject to some iterative process, if I can describe an argument in that way?

Mrs Jones: I think the point is we have not entirely finished our consultation about this point, and one can never be absolutely sure whether the advice would be from parliamentary counsel or our own lawyers that these are things about which we should have statutory provision. If those discussions lead us to think we should have a formal defence authority that might be one issue where clearly we would need statutory provision, but if we feel we could continue with the arrangements that we have at the moment which are non statutory, then that is what we will do. We cannot make a final decision on that at the moment, however, until we have finished our consultation on quite how we want this to work.

Q51 Mr Havard: So we should ask you two questions later down the track which are "Why you are not having an authority" and "Are you or are you not going to use other parliamentary arrangements like the regulatory reform order process or whatever to bring changes after the enabling Bill"?

Mr Morrison: The general proposition here is that the ability of the Services to ensure that they ought to provide so that those accused under their system are legally represented does not require statutory authority. It is as simple as that. You do not need to say in a Bill "the Services may provide" or even that "they shall provide". That is a general duty which arises not merely from compliance but to adjust from the general requirements of the law to have a charge should be fair. A trial in which somebody is not adequately defended can be appealed and go to the CMAC. We have a court martial at court which will look at the fairness of the trial in accordance both with the ECHR and law court principles, so there is not any thought suddenly to start saying that all this needs to go in the Bill. It will not and it does not exist at the moment. If we wished for some reason, and at the moment there seems to be no argument to suggest that we should, to have some over‑arching authority to control and organise the defence, which for some reason had to be a freestanding and independent authority, then one would look at statutory provisions but so far none of the Services, nor the senator, has suggested that there is any reason for this.

Q52 Mr Havard: And you do not require that to be compliant with the obligations under the Human Rights Act?

Mr Morrison: The defence system provided must be compliant but you do not need a statutory provision to deal with that.

Q53 Rachel Squire: Can I focus my questions on the review procedure to Brigadier Andrews? It is proposed that the review procedure for court martial finding and sentence will be abolished, and the memorandum sets out the case for this but also notes that the current arrangements can have advantages with some defendants. Could you say, Brigadier, what your view is of those advantages and how much defendants currently benefit from these advantages?

Brigadier Andrews: At the moment a defendant or somebody who is convicted can appeal to the Army Review Authority, can petition them, on the basis of finding a sentence, and that was done for example in 2003 in about 15 cases. Fifteen cases were changed, mitigated, by the Army Reviewing Authority out of about 500 trials. Now all cases are reviewed for legal correctness by the Judge Advocate General, and a number of individuals do decide to petition the reviewing authority. They may have their binding sentence varied. The reviewing authority only acts with the advice of the Judge Advocate General and it may only mitigate a sentence, so it can only act to the benefit of the individual. It is a very unusual procedure but it does provide a very swift remedy for a petitioner who feels he has been wronged in some way, either by the procedure of the court or by the finding of the court or by the sentence, so it is a very quick access, as a petitioner would see it, to setting the matter straight. It is a very unusual procedure and it is against that backdrop that in developing this Bill we have looked at a way of a timely and effective and transparent way of meeting the concerns of those petitioners in the future.

Q54 Rachel Squire: So, as you have said, it is roughly around 500 courts martial a year for the Army?

Brigadier Andrews: Yes.

Q55 Rachel Squire: And the Army is the major user of the system. So would you say the Army is content for the review system to be abolished?

Brigadier Andrews: I think against the backdrop ‑‑

Q56 Rachel Squire: Given the advantages that it is clearly seen to have by the petitioners?

Brigadier Andrews: We, of course, have had to look very closely at the balance of the argument for the obvious benefit to the petitioner and the complexities that obviously stem from such an unusual procedure, particularly the procedure that in future has to be seen, as any post trial procedure must of course be seen, to be absolutely transparent. We have had a very careful and I think very comprehensive debate amongst the Services and with our legal advisers about the matter of review, and I think this Bill will, I hope very much for those who find themselves convicted or courts martialled, deliver timely justice to those who feel they have been wronged in some way by the court martial procedure.

Q57 Rachel Squire: Have you consulted amongst all ranks, or only at the top?

Brigadier Andrews: Well, of course, there are very few soldiers and officers in an Army of over 100,000 who find themselves on the receiving end of a court martial. I do not mean that to be facetious and, of course, not all of those have petitioned the reviewing authority, and it would be very unusual, for example, for somebody who pleaded guilty to petition the reviewing authority over the finding, but a number do. I have been a member of the Army reviewing authority for four out of the last five years and I think I understand, as do those officers who have worked with me as members of the reviewing authority, very well the mind of the petitioner and in acting in the interests of discipline across the Service and looking at the nature of offences, in this Bill we will arrive at a procedure where the concerns of those petitioners should be met. I hope very much that they will be.

Q58 Rachel Squire: It is a very small number but it is just trying to ensure that this change, this abolition of review system, is seen as a move towards openness and transparency and is not interpreted as a denial of what was seen as somebody's right if they found themselves in that position. That was why I was wondering whom you had consulted.

Brigadier Andrews: It is a very complex question. It brings into the equation many elements, not least of which are the rights of victims, the rights of individuals themselves, and the need for military justice to be seen to be fair and to be transparently there, and I think that the legal advice that we received has pointed to a way on which we can achieve that fair outcome. That is what our people are interested in: they are interested in timely and fair outcomes in the justice system.

Q59 Mr Cran: I have been looking at the memorandum from the Ministry of Defence - how sad I am if I am reading this, but anyway! At the end, on page 29, we come to this individual called the Judge Advocate General and it says this: "The Judge Advocate General should be the single appointing authority for judge advocates, both in post and to all individual trials." There is no other reference, as far as I can see, in the memorandum to this. Can you tell us what the rationale for this is?

Mr Morrison: At the moment there is a Judge Advocate General who does exactly that job for the Army and the Air Force. There is a separate post called the Judge Advocate to the Fleet - they are both ancient, historic appointments - who has the same task as far as the Navy is concerned. There was previously a strong rationale for the separation of the Navy because the Navy had different rules as to who could be a Judge Advocate. In particular the Navy used uniformed officers as Judge Advocates in their trials - they were qualified lawyers but they were members of the Royal Navy - whereas the Army and the Air Force had moved over to the appointment of civilian Judge Advocates, judges if you like. In a case called Grieves the European Court recently held that the naval system of having uniformed Judge Advocates was non‑compliant and they therefore moved over to appointing, broadly speaking from the same pool of civilian Judge Advocates. All the Services are now on exactly the same system and it seems unnecessary to have to maintain separate authorities appointing from different pools of civilian judges for courts martial. Given that we are going to have a unified system and a unified court, obviously that drives us even more logically towards having one rather than two appointing authorities.

Q60 Mr Cran: So the Judge Advocate General will not be a serving officer but, as it were, will be a legal professional?

Mr Morrison: He always has been for the last ‑‑

Q61 Mr Cran: Except for the Navy, did you say?

Captain Crabtree: The Navy have had an individual called the Judge Advocate of the Fleet who like the Judge Advocate General is a senior circuit judge who supervises and superintends our system. The Navy also had an individual called the Chief Naval Judge Advocate who was a senior naval lawyer. In the other two Services they are called Director (Legal Services) but we called ours Chief Naval Judge Advocate because he also had a role as a Judge Advocate and appointed Judge Advocates in particular trials. Once the case of Grieves was decided that appointment essentially came to an end and he is now called the Director (Naval Legal Services) so there was a distinction between the Chief Naval Judge Advocate and JAF, the Judge Advocate of the Fleet.

Mr Cran: And I suppose there is no point my asking whether there is any resistance by the Navy to that, because you are so much in agreement it is unbelievable!

Q62 Rachel Squire: It is unprecedented for the three Services to be in agreement.

Captain Crabtree: Even the Judge Advocate of the Fleet and the Judge Advocate General's office are content with the proposal.

Q63 Mr Cran: Why am I not surprised at that answer! Again, because there is nothing else in the document about the Judge Advocate General that I can see, could you set out the functions of the Judge Advocate General? I presume he or she will do more than I read out at the beginning. Could you set that out for us?

Mr Morrison: The key functions are the appointment and overall supervision of the judge advocacy system. They choose the judge advocates, both those who will become Judge Advocates generally and those who will sit on an individual case, and that is the JAG's primary function. More generally, of course, he is an expert.

Q64 Mr Cran: Or she?

Mr Morrison: He or she - it happens it is a he at the moment - he is an expert in the criminal law generally and has judicial experience, and that lends weight to the comments of the Judge Advocate General or Judge Admiral of the Fleet and their offices in relation to things like legislative proposals and so on. They are also involved in helping with the drafting of the rules relating to the Courts Martial Appeal Court because that is governed not by MoD legislation but by DCA legislation. I think those are really the main areas.

Brigadier Andrews: We are very happy to send you the page from the Queen's Regulations which sets out the role of the Advocate General. He does traditionally provide the Army and the Royal Air Force and, in future, the Royal Navy as well with advice and have a general overview of the way that the military criminal justice system is working, and indeed personally I can say as a member of the reviewing authority he has provided invaluable advice in the way we have developed these legal and disciplinary matters over the years.

Q65 Mr Cran: So this post is exactly the same as at present in the case of the Army and the Royal Air Force; it is just going to be different in terms of the Navy?

Brigadier Andrews: Yes.

Q66 Mr Cran: Who is going to appoint him and for what sort of tenure?

Captain Crabtree: The Queen appoints ‑‑

Q67 Mr Cran: But who really does?

Captain Crabtree: The Lord Chancellor.

Q68 Mr Cran: We know she does not sit down and say, "Now who am I going to get?"

Captain Crabtree: It is on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor in exactly the same way as any circuit judge.

Q69 Mr Cran: And I do not know what the tenure is.

Captain Crabtree: The tenure of a circuit judge, I think I am right in saying, is until 72 and there is no fixed contract, so to speak, with respect to the Judge Advocate Generals. It may be that he or she wants to move on to a different legal appointment but there is no fixed term.

Q70 Mike Gapes: You referred to this case of Grieves, and there have been a number of other case, Findlay and Hood, which have led to changes subsequently to comply with decisions which went against our government in the European Court. The memorandum we have from the MoD in paragraph 22 says that Service law has evolved in recent years to take account of developments in case law both in the House of Lords and in the European Court of Human Rights and it then says, "These proposals" - the new proposals - "maintain an approach that is evolutionary rather than revolutionary". My question really is why should we have such a piecemeal approach? Are we waiting for further rulings against us in the future so that our evolutionary approach will then be again changing?

The Committee suspended from 4.48 pm to 4.55 pm for a division in the House

 

 

Mr Miller: The question I think paraphrased was whether we should be more revolutionary and less evolutionary than we have been. We have found through the extensive consultation involving the Services and developing these proposals no appetite from, if you like, the users for a more revolutionary approach. You linked the question to some of the changes which have had to be made in recent years and it is worth saying in that context that the fundamentals of the Service justice system have been repeatedly found to be well‑based and compliant. We have made some significant adjustments but the core of the system has been found to be very much on the right lines, so we do not see from either direction a cause for a more revolutionary approach. What we have been doing, as you see, is trying to deal with some quite complex issues even in the evolutionary approach of moving towards a single system of justice.

Mr Morrison: I cannot add very much but to echo Julian the consultations really were very extensive and very lengthy of all the Services of people of all ranks and rates, and the users overall regard the system of courts martial as an impressive, fair and good system. There is therefore no user appetite for radical change. Does the court require us to make radical change? The answer is no, patently. They have required changes and in 1996 they did require significant changes, that the case of Findlay, but since then in every case that we have been involved in in front of the European Court of Human Rights they have always said that the system is basically sound, they have found things wrong with it, and no doubt in the future they will continue to scrutinise areas of it, both generally and in detail, and they may find further things, particularly in the details, that they do not like but we have to evolve in line with those requirements, if there are any. There is nothing which suggests in what they have said that we should change the system radically.

Q71 Mike Gapes: Could you tell me in what areas, if in any areas at all, a Tri‑Service Bill will improve human rights compliance?

The Chairman resumed the chair

 

 

Mr Morrison: The most obvious one is consistency. That is not that we consider the existing position to be non‑compliant, but certainly it has been the case, and Grieves was an example of it, that the court have themselves been worried and suspicious when different rules apply for no apparent reason, so if there are differences in punishments, for instance, if two Servicemen, one a sailor and one a soldier, commit an offence together and they are subject to different penalties, that is the sort of thing that will worry the ECHR, and I certainly see one of the key benefits of harmonisation as not strictly dealing with any legal point on ECHR but when we are before the ECHR and we are explaining our systems and sometimes having to justify them, it is far more convincing to do so on the basis that all unnecessary differences of treatment of members of different Services have been removed, so I think in that very broad sense that is important. There are one or two points where we have been concerned about ECHR. There is at the moment a very small restriction under naval legislation on the right to elect court martial trial instead of summary trial. We are going to remove that so that in all the Services there is what one might call a universal unfettered right to elect. We believe that is slightly safer in terms of ECHR compliance.

Q72 Mike Gapes: As you are aware, in the modern world sometimes lay people, civil society generally, does not really understand why there should be different disciplinary procedures and offences in a military context as there would be in society as a whole, and the reasons why those things are necessary. Do you not think it would be a good idea if there was to be an official MoD or government document, maybe even the Lord Chancellor could publish it, alongside the Bill setting out why there is a necessity to have these disciplinary procedures and offences for the armed forces which are different to those in society?

Mr Morrison: There is, I think, a very good setting‑out by the House of Lords in the cases of Boyd, Hastie and Spears, the most recent House of Lords' consideration of the courts martial system, which they held to be compliant, in which they set out not just the law but the justification for a Service system and in broad terms the existence of a Service system, they recognised, is one which has to maintain discipline everywhere in the world and ensure that members of the Armed Forces ‑ and I want to make sure I reflect their views as accurately as I can ‑ that members of the Armed Forces have not had inculcated in them but if necessary had enforced both self‑discipline in the sense of self‑control, prevention of soldiers shooting, as it were, when they should not, as well as discipline in the sense of a willingness to obey orders by the willingness to attack an enemy, and that consideration has justified the setting‑up of a system which is capable of understanding and applying those needs through a disciplinary system.

Q73 Mike Gapes: I think you have missed the point of my question. Really in a sense that may be something that has come out of a judgment in the Lords. What I am more concerned about is how we popularise, if you like, those arguments and put across the case because otherwise you might find the general public, society as a whole, do not understand perhaps the reasons. Is there not an argument that there should be - I am not saying a very simple document because anything that is involving legal questions is not going to be simple, but a document which can explain the reasons in terms which your normal member of the public and society can understand?

Mr Miller: That is a very fair distinction to make and it is not something we had thought about but we will, if we may, take that thought away and see if we can put it into effect. That is a very interesting idea.

Q74 Mike Gapes: Thank you. Finally from me, what safeguards are currently in place to ensure that Servicemen and women are aware of their legal rights, for example, to elect to trial by courts martial, and how will this Tri‑Service Bill improve on those?

Brigadier Andrews: When a soldier is reported for an offence and he is then warned for orders to appear before his Commanding Officer, at least 24 hours in advance of that hearing he is given a little book and he is required to confirm to his CO that he has had this book when he arrives in front of him which sets out what his statutory rights are. He also has appointed an accused adviser who will be an officer or warrant officer who is known to him and will sit down with him and set out for him what his rights are and what the procedures are, so that it is absolutely clear to him. It is explained to him both in clear written instructions and by somebody he knows what his rights are, and that will cover his right to elect for trial by court martial, the procedure that the commanding officer will follow, and subsequently his right to appeal to the summary appeal court, and the accused adviser is with him throughout that process.

Q75 Mike Gapes: Is that the same in all three Services?

Air Commodore Amroliwala: It is exactly the same for the Royal Air Force and I will add also that the actual summary hearing itself which is a scripted process requires the commanding officer at a number of points in that hearing again to draw attention to the accused's rights under the pamphlet, the publication, he has been given and if necessary to adjourn the hearing if the accused in any way looks as if he does not quite understand so they can properly explain to him.

Q76 Mike Gapes: Is this equivalent to PACE in the police force?

Mr Morrison: No.

Q77 Mike Gapes: It is not a similar process?

Air Commodore Amroliwala: Other than they both relate to the rights of the accused, no.

Captain Crabtree: In terms of anything that goes before the formality of a disciplinary trial, of course the individual has those rights that would apply. At the hearing the naval position is as for the other two Services. It is also worth mentioning the representative that the Brigadier mentioned, the accused adviser. He is there to ask questions on behalf of the accused if necessary, so all the information comes out and he is there to mitigate if the accused is found guilty or the case is proven. So he is well represented.

Q78 Mike Gapes: The accused adviser being who?

Brigadier Andrews: He will be an officer or a warrant officer that is either appointed by the Commanding Officer if the accused wants him to, or the accused can say, "I would like Lieutenant Smith to be my accused adviser today, please, sir", and Lieutenant Smith, if he is available, will step forward.

Q79 Mike Gapes: It will only be someone of that rank? It would not be somebody who was just a colleague, or somebody of the same rank?

Brigadier Andrews: No, it would not. It would be somebody who was competent and confident to give him authoritative advice.

Mike Gapes: Thank you.

Q80 Mr Havard: I am glad to see they are not going to be calling a peer in that context to be one of their mates, as opposed to one down the other end! There might be one of them later on. I want to ask about this business of redress of complaints, if I could. As I understand it, within the structure currently an individual can escalate, through the processes you describe, a complaint to the highest level up to the Service Board and so on. What they cannot then do is take cases to employment tribunals, for example. In the memorandum from the MoD it says that consideration has been given as to whether Service personnel should be brought within the scope of ordinary contract and employment law and so on. Can you tell me more about that consideration and what was the extent of the consultation that fed into that?

Mr Miller: I might come back to the process of consultation in a moment but the key issues we were concerned with here was whether we should be moving beyond the current position where there are, of course, rights to go to tribunal on grounds of discrimination, etc, and broaden that out into the other areas of Service life and the strong feeling, and I think this is widespread through the Services, was that to do so would be inimical to the fundamental relationship between members of the Armed Forces and the Service where there is a requirement for discipline in the Service and for people to, in effect, obey orders irrespective of whether they wished to or without questioning those orders, and to introduce into that relationship a degree of contractual relationship would be very hard to make it compatible with the effective maintenance of a disciplined armed Service.

Q81 Mr Havard: Can I add a supplementary because I am conflating two questions, and it is difficult to do it out of order. As I understand it, the engagement of Service is not, in the strictly legal sense, a contract so was this part of all of this consideration? Could you embellish on whether that was the driver, or was it something else? What was involved in that consideration?

Mr Morrison: Do you mind repeating the question? I am sorry.

Q82 Mr Havard: As I understand it there is contract law, in more general terms, there is employment law which relates one to another and often interrelates, but the engagement of Service is not a contract in the sense that Jo Bloggs would have a contract of employment which would be broader than just simply basic employment terms with Marks & Spencers or whatever - that is not the same relationship as far as Service personnel are concerned. Consequently how they relate to this whole process of redress and other tribunals and so on you have been considering, and you are saying there are certain things you feel are inimical with other obligations they have, but I wanted to get a little bit more about what was in that consideration and perhaps we can come back to whom you did consult?

Mr Morrison: I hope this is helpful, and forgive me if I do not give you the information you are looking for, certain aspects of employment law do apply to Service personnel. The most important by far is the law on discrimination, and in that area it was recognised that there was nothing in the Service disciplinary relationship which could possibly justify keeping members of the Armed Forces away from an independent judicial decision on whether they had been discriminated against, and therefore members of the Armed Forces, as does everyone else, have access to employment tribunals in relation to discrimination. In relation to the much more general position, the normal everyday relationship, if you like, between the Army and the individual Service personnel, I have to go back to what Julian has said; there the relationship is seen as essentially one of discipline and not of "What have I agreed to and what have I not agreed to", and the urgency, if you like, of that disciplinary element, the importance of the immediate obeying of lawful orders without questioning whether it has been agreed or not, the need to be able to enforce that not by sacking someone but by some sort of immediate disciplinary measure, led us to the conclusion that in areas apart from discrimination that disciplinary relationship has to be structured first and foremost around the statutory relationship of command and discipline and not by examination of what has and has not been agreed enforced by things like dismissal or other employer‑type remedies. Does that help?

Q83 Mr Havard: To a certain extent because I am beginning to understand a little bit more about how you approached it which was part of the question. It seems to me that in relation to human rights legislation there are things about equality and fair treatment which we have a particular process for dealing with through employment tribunals or whatever. Service personnel are in a particular position; therefore there is a particular set of obligations in relation to how they can be dealt with. In terms of terms and conditions as to whether they get pay and rations on time and other things then maybe not so, so there is a separation then, presumably, on broad headings of activity that you have to look at as to whether they can be said to be compliant by the fact that there is a process in one area, but does the other process cater for all the other terms? I am just trying to get a feel for who is involved in all of that consideration.

Mrs Jones: There are two points there. The point you have drawn out, that in some areas Service personnel can go to an employment tribunal where it does not interfere with this particular disciplinary relationship, is clear but for all the other areas where there is not that protection it makes it all the more important that we have a proper and effective and transparent system of redress, which is why there is statutory provision for a redress of grievance procedure within the Armed Forces which they can use. From that point of view, therefore, in those areas where we need to protect the relationship between discipline and command, the importance of having a system of redress is clear. In terms of the consultation, I do not think I can make very much of that. The consultation has been very much within the armed Services themselves certainly, as we developed this process - I was not there for this particular bit, I am relieved to say, but all the proposals we have for the Bill have been matters which have been exhaustively discussed between the three Services as part of the joint approach, and so the consultation has not particularly, I think I would be right in saying, taken place with external bodies. It has been, "Are we clear that there are some areas of the relationship in terms of command and discipline that must be maintained in the way we have them at the moment? Can we go further than we have at the moment in terms of being able to apply directly to employment tribunals, for example, in relation to discrimination cases?" So that consultation has been internal rather than with outside bodies.

Q84 Mr Havard: I suppose once this process is running there will be external actors, as it were, in the picture who will look at it and make comment on it anyway. Presumably you will have some process of review examining whether or not it is efficient and whether you need to change it. Do you think it is a good idea that maybe you may bring in some external actors to perhaps advise you in terms of reviewing it, or commission them to look at it, because there is experience elsewhere about how these things could work that might be useful?

Mrs Jones: I would not rule that out. There are a number of ways in which the Services consult their own personnel about how particular processes work but I do not think there are any plans at the moment to bring external people to see how the redress of grievance process will work.

Brigadier Andrews: Perhaps I could help here. In the Army three years ago we set up an office for the standards of casework, because it is the Brigadier's job to look at how efficient and effective we are in following our own disciplinary rules and rules of complaints, and he does that and, of course, the work he has done has informed our consultation within the formulation of the Bill here, so we already have self‑regulation of our own procedures here.

Q85 Mr Havard: That is very helpful but one of my questions was going to be on the question of other countries. You have consulted other countries and there is a list of them in the memorandum, and there may be others as well, but the position of whether or not people can, if you like, prosecute any arguments they have in contract law and employment law in different ways presumably was part of the consideration that came into the advice you got when you consulted other countries about how they do it. How do Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand handle this and how is that fed into the process? Do they do it differently, do some of them not have the relationship you are describing?

Mrs Jones: I think it is generally fair to say that in Commonwealth countries and in the United States they also do not have contracts of employment in the way that we would have considered, and certainly in our consultation with those countries, and in particular Canada, who has done a very wide‑ranging review of its disciplinary powers, we have drawn quite heavily on their experience in relation to their redress of grievance procedure in drawing together the proposals that we are now looking at for our own.

Q86 Mr Havard: Forgive me, yes, you have done that part of it but there is also this other part of it which is how they relate in terms of being able to press all the other things beyond the simple disciplinary matters. It is the contract and employment law, which is slightly different.

Mr Morrison: I think redress will cover, as it does at the moment, any case in which any member of the Armed Forces feels him or herself wronged or unfairly treated in anyway. It is not limited to disciplinary situations, and I think that is the same with Canada. Their redress system is also very wide‑ranging. But in that sense, although there is still work to do on the structure of redress system, it will certainly be broad‑ranging in the same sort of way that the existing redress provisions are broad‑ranging. So we have, if you like, the quasi criminal jurisdiction which can result in an appeal; everything else that is not covered by appeal, any sense that somebody has been mistreated, if you like, is subject to redress and at the moment it can be literally on anything from pay policy to promotions or discharge or whatever.

Mrs Jones: Can I just add that I have been reminded that as part of the consultation process we did consult the police about their systems of complaint, and also ACAS.

Mr Havard: I would like to pursue this further but time does not allow it. There was an argument back in the early 1900s about this, was there not? We have uniformed Services that are not members of trade unions, so this argument has been run round once or twice before. There is a history to it. Maybe it comes into the questions that my colleague, Mr Gapes, was asking earlier on about clarity and about description, about separation, demarcation and people being clear exactly which things are included and not, why they are not and how they are dealt with if they are not?

Q87 Mr Viggers: The memorandum says there is to be a Tri Service Redress of Complaints Panel but that further work will be needed on the detail. Can I probe as to how we are getting on so far and where we think we are going? How is the further work progressing and when do you expect to complete this?

Mr Miller: It is progressing. There is a working group looking at how best to develop the redress arrangements. It is, indeed, likely that we will come up with a new panel; that panel will, we hope, lead to some improvements in the redress process, that it will lead to speedier redress, that it will remove from the Service Boards some of the issues which at present they have to deal with which are not perhaps always of terribly high significance: that it will be a system which is perhaps more clearly separated from the chain of command and has a more visible degree of independence in cases where that is appropriate, and in particular that it is a system of review by a panel which will be empowered clearly to take appropriate action where redress is appropriate, and that we hope it will be in a position to give those complainants who are found to have a justified case a speedy and effective remedy.

Q88 Mr Viggers: Have you decided how many members of the panel there will be yet?

Mr Miller: We have not decided the details of the panel but it is likely to be something which we can constitute from a variety of people who will be providing a pool at a, in military terms, Two Star level to appear on the panel. It will be, I expect, able to draw on military and civilian members and to adjust its constitution according to the particular redress case that is coming forward.

Mrs Jones: In general we would expect the membership to be about three.

Q89 Mr Viggers: And these will be Two Star, or possibly One Star?

Mrs Jones: Two Star?

Mr Miller: Normally Two Star. I think you are picking up the reference in the memorandum to the possibility of involving One Star.

Q90 Mr Viggers: Yes. I was wondering which arms these would come from? Might there be a predominance? I would imagine a Special Forces person would rather have a Special Forces person on the review panel than a submariner. Is there likely to be a predominance of those with legal training and personnel experience?

Mr Miller: I do not think we have really got our proposals for the redress panel in a sufficiently developed state to give you definitive answers on these points but we would certainly expect there would be sufficient scope in the pool of panel members to ensure there were people of appropriate background and expertise to deal with individual cases as they came forward.

Q91 Mr Viggers: Because to get that appropriate expertise and experience they probably need to be personnel‑trained rather than dagger‑in‑the‑teeth, and I wondered whether you will be seeking to get a cross‑section of the Armed Forces on the panel, or whether these will be people who are specifically trained in sitting on panels?

Mr Miller: I do not think we are looking at people who are going to be full‑time panel members, but people who will have day jobs but expertise which will be brought to bear usefully in that sort of panel.

Q92 Mr Viggers: Can I ask about the constitutional relationship between officers and the Sovereign? As I understand it from the memorandum it is made clear that issues of significance like dismissal or issues of that importance might still go through to the Sovereign, whereas other issues will be stopped at a lower level. Can you tell me what happens when an officer successfully petitions to the Sovereign?

Mr Morrison: The case must have first gone to the Board, and if a petition then is made to the Sovereign it is put through the Secretary of State to the Sovereign who acts in her normal constitutional position taking advice from ministers, but she can look at any aspect of the case put to her and can give any instruction that she thinks appropriate. In other words, the person petitioning does not have to ask for a particular remedy or allege some legal defect or anything like that, so it is a very broad range of activities of actions that Her Majesty can take. Clearly at the same time there is a recognition constitutionally that she has entrusted the basic decision on these matters to the defence counsel and that, therefore, the power should be used sparingly otherwise there could be scope for, in the event, executive interference, in the broader sense Crown interference, in the process, and it has been reckoned for 100 years that the Sovereign's involvement in these cases has to be where it is manifest that justice for some reason has not been done by the defence counsel rather than her acting as a re‑hearing from the start of the whole case. So it is a fairly limited procedure in which, as I say, she is not looking at the whole case afresh but seeing if there are grounds for it to be clear that justice has not been done. In that case, she can take any action she thinks appropriate.

Q93 Mr Viggers: But she takes advice from ministers?

Mr Morrison: Constitutionally she might, yes. It is not a personal power of a Sovereign.

Q94 Mr Viggers: So it is not, as it were, the prerogative of calling for Mr A or Mrs B to form a government from which she consults her own advisers?

Mr Morrison: No. She consults the Secretary of State.

Q95 Mr Viggers: Will all proposals relating to the redress of grievances set out in the memorandum be included in the Bill? Do you yet know?

Mr Miller: I think the answer is that we do not have the proposals fully developed yet but it is not clear that all of them will need to be in primary legislation.

Mrs Jones: A bit like now, the right of redress at the moment is covered in one section in each of the three discipline Acts. Underneath that there are at a lower level the procedures and so we would not envisage the full system of redress to be in the Tri‑Service Act, no.

Q96 Mr Viggers: And is there a procedure whereby you take the view of serving personnel officers and other ranks about the proposals you have for disciplinary procedures?

Mr Miller: In terms of the proposals which we are now developing for redress?

Q97 Mr Viggers: Yes, specifically and generally?

Mr Miller: Well, that is part of the general process. It is a very wide consultation.

Brigadier Andrews: We have certainly within the Army explored in a number of ways how we, over the years, have developed our disciplinary procedures and we test the fairness, the perception of fairness, in our own continuous attitude survey where we ask our people, a significant number from time to time on a regular basis, "Do you feel that Service disciplinary procedures are fair? Have you been treated fairly?" So not only do we consult on how we should develop our procedures; we also test them as we go.

Q98 Rachel Squire: I want to ask you about Boards of Inquiry. I understand it is envisaged that the Tri‑Service Act, subject to on‑going work, should provide for a single system of Service Inquiry encompassing present Boards of Inquiry and regimental unit inquiries extended to cover the Royal Navy, so quite a radical proposal for the Royal Navy. The memorandum currently says this is going to carry on with work progressing, so can I ask those of you who would like to comment what your views are and how the work is progressing?

Captain Crabtree: The principal difference between the Royal Navy and the other two Services at the moment is that our power of Board of Inquiry is in prerogative, whereas the Army and the RAF's is statutory. The reality is that we are pretty close together in many respects because once one goes below and looks at the rules we have in place there is a degree of commonality. The proposals that are emerging at the moment will result in Boards of Inquiries in circumstances where you would have Boards of Inquiries at the moment, so no real change. It is just a harmonisation of the system and it will not affect the number or the sorts of circumstances where we would have them, but we see sense in harmonisation and we see sense in adopting some of the proposals which relate to what the other Services do, for example, the right or requirement to take an oath in giving evidence. We do not do that at the moment but we listen to what the other Services have said about the advantages and we are entirely happy to go down that route. So it is not a radical change, I do not think, in reality for the Navy.

Q99 Rachel Squire: So you are being positive?

Captain Crabtree: We are being positive.

Brigadier Andrews: I think that the work we have done on Boards of Inquiry here is a really useful harmonisation. It gives us a straightforward, single, understandable system that we can put in place and use effectively. This is, for us, a really useful progress.

Air Commodore Amroliwala: The variety of inquiries we have had in the past have been sometimes ill‑defined in the sense of which inquiry might be most suitable for which circumstance. This is going to bring far greater clarity so those who are both running inquiries and those who are subject to inquiries will have a far better understanding of the nature of what it is we are doing.

Rachel Squire: Thank you. I think that answers that particular topic.

Chairman: We will end at this point; you have suffered enough!

Q100 Mr Viggers: Just quickly, the intention is to use the Armed Forces Bill as the vehicle for implementing administrative change. Is it your expectation and intention that this will operate in the same way as previous select committees on the Armed Forces Bill, which will have a Select Committee stage prior to the Standing Committee?

Mr Miller: Subject to the views of the House, that is our expectation.

Q101 Chairman: The views of the House can prevail a little. You are very lucky; you have been saved by the bell. I am about to launch into a diatribe about the appalling misuse of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, which excluded free and independent members of Parliament; it was an outrageous abuse of parliamentary power by the Alternative Executive, PPSs, Whips. The only honourable person there was Rachel, but she was a trustee who was put on, and if there is anything remotely resembling that farce of composition I hope the House will express its anger in the strongest possible way. Now, we will write to you on that and the Clerk will be a little more discreet than I was in expressing our views!

Mr Miller: We will look forward to that. Thank you.

Chairman: Thank you very much for coming.