Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has pointed out the gap or hole in the Bill. In response, the Minister pointed to the fact that a juvenile will be dealt with by a single judge advocate who has the powers of a judge in a youth court. Does that judge advocate have the training? It cannot be imagined that a senior judge advocate will be sitting over juveniles. He is apparently not to be assisted by any lay people with experience in dealing with children, as happens in the juvenile courts in England and Wales and the juvenile panels in Scotland. So there is a hole. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is right to say that we have not filled the hole. I do not think that I can. I cannot import into this Bill a whole provision for setting up a satisfactory youth court that will be the equivalent of the youth courts and youth panels in this country and have that sort of experience to accompany it. Some 20,000 of our juvenile citizens, if they are in trouble, will come before a judge advocate—very probably a deputy judge advocate who comes from the Bar for the purpose, without the proper training or the knowledge of all the possibilities for rehabilitation and so on that apply in our youth courts and youth panels. So there is a hole. It is impossible for me to fill it by an amendment to the Bill, but it is important that your Lordships should sound a note of principle to indicate that there is more work to be done and that we have not reached the final position on military justice by passing this Bill. The opportunity has been missed, and that is sad. I should have wished this to be a complete Bill that would have covered the whole situation for the next 10, 20 or 30 years. But that is not the case. There is a hole in the Bill, and I hope that noble Lords will mark that hole by supporting the amendment. I should like to seek the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 54; Not-Contents, 175.