Armed Forces Bill

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the earlier stages of the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) and I argued strongly that the powers of the commanding officer must be maintained above and beyond all else. We were particularly concerned about the Trooper Williams case. I argued, and would continue to argue, that it is crucially important for the commanding officer to have the power to dismiss charges when they appear in front of him in exceptional circumstances such as those posed by operations that occurred in relation to the Second Royal Tank Regiment in Iraq. However, it is clear that that argument is not going to progress any further. I beg the Minister to understand the nature of the relationship between a private soldier—fusilier, guardsman, trooper, or whatever his rank—and the commanding officer who is responsible for his everyday conduct, his safety, the justice that is applied to him, and the way in which he, or she, lives his or her life. My experience is only of the Army, but commanding officers in the Navy and in the Royal Air Force face precisely the same problems and pressures. I have been terribly critical of the Government’s tinkering with the regimental system and the destruction that they have wrought upon a system that has saved this country many times in the past. The feudal—I use the word correctly—nature of our regimental systems means that there is, or at least has been in the past, a very special relationship between the ordinary soldier, seaman or airman in the junior ranks who trusts his commanding officer implicitly and understands the background that he or she comes from, and the commanding officer who, vice versa, understands the backgrounds from which those soldiers, sailors and airmen come. I therefore warmly commend and thank the Government for having listened to the experienced voices in the upper House.