Armed Forces Bill

A judgment on the Martin case was delivered recently in the European Court of Human Rights. Ministers have held throughout our proceedings that the Bill is compliant. For the sake of brevity, I shall merely say that the case involved a 17-year-old civilian, the son of a serving soldier, who was tried for murder. The trial took place by court martial in Germany after the father had left the service and, indeed, left Germany. The child was taken back there. Can the Minister tell us whether the case will result in a change in the administration of the Service Civilian Court? In respect of punishments, there was a debate in the other place about the rules of engagement. The Government decided not to accept the suggestion from the former chiefs that the rules of engagement ought to be cast in law, so that any soldier, sailor or airman acting in pursuance of those rules would be immune from prosecution. It might help the House if the Minister repeated some of the assurances given in the other place, most notably by his noble Friend Lord Drayson, who referred on 11 October to"““the situation where a soldier makes a mistake””." Lord Drayson said"““it is important for me to reassure the Committee that if a soldier acts in combat on his view of the situation, even if it is wrong, he will not be guilty of a crime.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 295.]" Our soldiers have concerns about the rules of engagement and about the risk of prosecution, about which the armed forces have tried to do something to reassure our soldiers in particular. If the Minister could state here that he supported what his noble Friend Lord Drayson said, it will send out a clear message to our armed forces—particularly those on the front line in Afghanistan and, to a lesser extent, in Iraq—that they can have confidence in the system, and that provided that they act in good faith and in accordance with their rules of engagement, notwithstanding that those rules are not enshrined in law, they will be supported not only by the chain of command but by the service courts that the Bill seeks to establish.