Armed Forces Bill

I am acutely aware of the sensitivity of the issue. The right hon. Member for Islwyn said that he hoped we could find a solution. He was not able to do so when he was in the Department. Clearly, there is an issue, but we have to consider whether there are downsides to the proposal. Ministers have repeatedly asserted that they are not aiming to rewrite history, but many fear that this will create a precedent and are in no way reassured by the familiar Whitehall mantra that there are ““no plans”” to extend the pardon to other campaigns, as Lord Drayson has said. Is it really beyond belief that others shot for desertion during some other battle will not become the object of a further campaign? Or that other nations might not seize upon this precedent to demand apologies for acts of war? How would Ministers like to be the subject of future generations’ judgment on the management of the Iraq war, including their decisions on preparation, deployment and tactics—judged not by today’s standards, but in circumstances and according to values that we cannot yet anticipate? The decision"““could create precedents for the future and it cannot but have the effect of impugning the judgment of the people who made those very difficult decisions at the time. It cannot but have the effect of revisiting history, which is very dangerous, and putting the gloss and judgments of today on decisions made in conditions which we cannot in our time and at this distance make proper judgments about.”” —[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 430.]" These are not my words; they were the words of Lord Ashdown in another place on 12 October. Undoubtedly, it was an extremely fair point.