New
Schedule
11
‘Amendments
to armed forces
legislation
Part
1
Courts-Martial
(Appeals) Act 1968
1 The
Courts-Martial (Appeals) Act 1968 (c. 20) has effect subject to the
following
amendments.
Determination of
appeals from Court
Martial
2 (1) Section 12
(power to quash conviction as unsafe) is amended as
follows.
(2) After subsection
(1) insert—
“(1A)
For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), the conviction is not unsafe if
the Appeal Court think that there is no reasonable doubt about the
appellant’s guilt.
(1B)
Subsection (1A) does not require the Appeal Court to dismiss the appeal
if they think that it would seriously undermine the proper
administration of justice to allow the conviction to
stand.”
(3) After subsection (1B) (inserted by sub-paragraph
(2) above)
insert—
“(1C) In
determining for the purposes of subsection (1)(a) whether the
conviction is unsafe the Appeal Court may, if they think it appropriate
in all the circumstances of the case, disregard any development in the
law since the date of the
conviction.”
3 (1)
Section 21 (appeal against finding of not guilty by reason of insanity)
is amended as follows.
(2)
After subsection (1A) (as inserted by the Armed Forces Act 2006)
insert—
“(1AA)
For the purposes of subsection (1A)(a), the finding shall not be
regarded as unsafe for a reason unrelated to the correctness of the
finding of insanity if the Appeal Court think that there is no
reasonable doubt that the appellant did the act or made the omission
charged.
(1AB) Subsection
(1AA) does not require the Appeal Court to dismiss the appeal if they
think that it would seriously undermine the proper administration of
justice to allow the finding to
stand.”
(3) After
subsection (1AB) (inserted by sub-paragraph (2) above)
insert—
“(1AC) In
determining for the purposes of subsection (1A)(a) whether the finding
is unsafe the Appeal Court may, if they think it appropriate in all the
circumstances of the case, disregard any development in the law since
the date of the
finding.”
4 (1) Section
25 (disposal of appeal against finding of unfitness) is amended as
follows.
(2) After subsection
(1A) (as inserted by the Armed Forces Act 2006)
insert—
“(1AA)
For the purposes of subsection (1A)(a), a finding shall not be regarded
as unsafe for a reason unrelated to the correctness of the finding that
the appellant is unfit to stand trial if the Appeal Court think that
there is no reasonable doubt that the appellant did the act or made the
omission charged.
(1AB)
Subsection (1AA) does not require the Appeal Court to dismiss the
appeal if they think that it would seriously undermine the proper
administration of justice to allow the finding to
stand.”
(3) After
subsection (1AB) (inserted by sub-paragraph (2) above)
insert—
“(1AC) In
determining for the purposes of subsection (1A)(a) whether a finding is
unsafe the Appeal Court may, if they think it appropriate in all the
circumstances of the case, disregard any development in the law since
the date of the
finding.”
5 In section
28 (evidence)—
(a) in
subsection (2)(b) after “allowing” insert “or
dismissing”, and
(b) in
subsection (2)(c) for “which is the subject of the
appeal” substitute “which is relevant to the
determination of the
appeal”.
6 Before
section 36 (but after the cross-heading preceding it)
insert—
“35A
Evidence given after close of prosecution
case
In determining an appeal
under this Part, the Appeal Court shall not disregard any evidence
solely on the ground that it was given after the judge advocate at the
appellant’s trial wrongly permitted the trial to continue after
the close of the evidence for the
prosecution.”—[Mr.
Coaker.]
Brought
up, read the First and Second time, and added to the
Bill.
Amendment made: No. 369,
in title, line 4, after ‘Prisons’
insert
‘and the
Northern Ireland Commissioner for Prison
Complaints’.—[Mr.
Hanson.]
Ordered.
That
certain written evidence already reported to the House be
appended to the proceedings of the Committee.—[Mr.
Hanson.]
Mr.
Hanson:
On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. We
potentially have twenty-one minutes left to us. May I thank you and
your co-Chairmen, Mr. O’Hara and Mr. Cook,
for your diligence, charm, wit and efficiency in managing the
Committee? This is an unusual type of early release for the Committee,
but I am certainly glad that we have managed to get it because I can
now get my train to north Wales with some ease.
On behalf of the whole
Committee, may I thank the badge messengers, Mr. Sandall,
our Clerk, Hansard, and our colleagues from the police. All have
provided a particularly efficient service, especially given the number
of amendments that have been tabled by the Government and by Opposition
Members.
I particularly
thank the Opposition Front Benchers—the hon. and learned Member
for Harborough and the hon. Members for Enfield, Southgate, for
Somerton and Frome and for Cambridge—for their diligence in
testing the Government. I hope that they have found it not an
unfruitful exercise. My hon. Friends the Under-Secretaries of State for
the Home Department and for Justice and I have agreed to examine a
number of the amendments that they have proposed. I also thank my two
ministerial colleagues for their sterling support in this work, and my
hon. Friend the Member for Tooting and his Opposition counterpart, the
hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood, for their work in the usual
channels.
I
particularly thank my hon. Friends the Members for Sedgefield and for
Ealing, Southall for their commitment to the Bill. They won very hard
fought by-elections during the summer. I am sure that they looked
forward to spending forty-eight and a half hours in Committee in 16
sittings spread over two parliamentary Sessions, given that the Bill
was carried over and has been in Committee since 16 October. I am sure
that they dreamed of this day when they were tramping the streets of
Trimdon and Ealing. I wish them well and thank them for their support.
I also thank my hon. Friends who are not present for their commitment
to the Bill and I thank Opposition Members whose contributions tested
us in debate.
Finally,
I want to thank the most important people in the room: the officials
who have backed up the ministerial team; they have been superb. Hon.
Members will have seen a constant stream of them coming through the
Committee to support all three of us. They have done a sterling job.
Perhaps I will give them tomorrow off before we start preparing the
Bill for Report and for consideration in another place. I wish them a
happy Christmas and new year.
I conclude by wishing you, Sir
Nicholas, a very happy Christmas and a positive new
year.
Mr.
Garnier:
Further to that point of order, Sir Nicholas. I
join the Minister in thanking you and your two co-Chairmen.
This comes with even greater
heartfelt sincerity from the Opposition, as we do not have the benefit
of the officials, whom I cannot see, but I know they exist somewhere in
the background—I occasionally see a note being passed although I
cannot see where it has come from—but I thank Mr.
Sandall and his colleagues in the Public Bill Office, because without
the assistance of the Clerk’s Department, running a Committee in
opposition would be, not difficult, but impossible.
I also thank the Hansard
reporters for their forbearance, their speed and their accuracy,
and the police officers and the doorkeepers. As usual they have kept us
in order and kept the show on the road. I am grateful to all of
them.
It is fair to
say that this has been an unhappy Bill, but not an unhappy Committee. I
believe that there were 85 new clauses proposed for a Bill that already
had 128 clauses, and 11 new schedules to add to the 23 that are already
there. There must have been about 400 amendments on the amendment
paper, the vast majority of which were tabled by the Government. The
Bill has its genesis in two separate Departments and as a consequence,
it is not the most coherent of measures. I described it on Second
Reading as something of a plum-duff. The Minister of State thought that
was jolly unfair and he complained that he had never had
plum-duff.
6.45
pm
I owe a huge
debt of gratitude for their assistance to my hon.
Friends the Members for Enfield, Southgate, for Ruislip-Northwood, for
Kettering and for Broxbourne, as well as my colleagues on the Liberal
Democrat Benches. We all wish that the Minister had had an opportunity
to have plum-duff, as he would then have understood the accuracy of my
analogy. I promised myself that I would make a plum-duff pudding for
the Minister of State before the end of the Committee, but, sadly, I
have not had time. Instead, I have been to the House of Commons shop
and bought him a House of Commons whisky cake. It is full of nuts. I
shall give it to him when the Committee is over. I want him to take it
home, chew on it, enjoy every tasty morsel and understand that although
it is not quite as good as a plum duff, it is as full of separate
ingredients as a plum-duff might
be.
The
Chairman:
Perhaps you should give it to him now so that he
can enjoy it on the train—if you allow him to catch his
train.
Mr.
Garnier:
I am not quite sure about the etiquette for
passing Christmas puddings across the Committee Room. The Minister will
see that it is full of nuts, but if he delves in there, something
edible might emerge. In the same way, when we delved into this Bill,
one or two ideas emerged that are quite good, but it is held together
with an awful lot of extraneous and not terribly helpful
material.
The
Chairman:
Order. I do not wish to rule a distinguished
barrister, or a judge, for that matter, out of order, but this is
rather a long point of order.
Mr.
Garnier:
Well, there we are. Let me conclude by
thanking everybody for having given us a jolly wonderful time, and let
us hope that we do not have to go through this
again.
Mr.
Heath:
Further to that point of order, Sir Nicholas. I,
too, thank you and your co-Chairmen for your never-ending diligence in
getting my constituency pronounced correctly. It is
appreciated.
I
associate myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge with the
thanks that have already been given to everyone involved with the
Committee. It would be otiose—to use the Under-Secretary of
State for Justice’s and my favourite word—to repeat those
thanks. These mini-Oscar ceremonies at the end of Committees can become
very long—and now we are expected to give gifts. I feel
hopelessly under-prepared for the
occasion.
As the hon.
and learned Gentleman said, this has been a good Committee on a mixed
Bill, which has both its good parts and some elements that we shall
continue to probe and oppose. My one parting shot is that there were
times when we had to sit late to get through the business under an
artificially truncated timetable. I hope that we will have sufficiently
long on Report to do justice to the Bill, which is very long and
has lots of disparate parts that we still need to consider in depth.
That, if I may say so through you, Sir Nicholas, will require at least
two days, but I shall make that point elsewhere. Thank you, very
much.
The
Chairman:
This has been an excellent Committee. I am not
allowed to comment on the Bill—I am totally impartial—but
I want to thank in particular the Ministers and Opposition spokesmen
for their tireless work and the tremendous amount of research and
preparation that they have put into the Bill.
I thank all members of the
Committee, and welcome in particular the new Members from Sedgefield,
the former Prime Minister’s constituency, and Ealing, Southall.
I hope that you have learned quite a lot from the Committee. I thank
also my Clerk and all the Clerks who have helped, as well as
Hansard, the police and the doorkeepers. It has been a very well
run Committee.
Finally, I
thank my co-Chairmen, Mr. O’Hara, and Mr.
Cook for assisting. We have done a splendid job with the co-operation
of all members of the Committee. I thank you all and wish you a happy
Christmas and prosperous new
year.
Bill, as
amended, to be
reported.
Committee
rose at eleven minutes to Seven
o’clock.
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