Armed Forces (Service Complaints Commissioner) Regulations 2007

I thank the Minister for that helpful explanation. I have just a couple of questions for clarification, and if I have missed something and the answers are already in front of me, I apologise. My first question concerns the regulations covering the redress of individual grievances. Quite understandably, the regulations provide for at least one officer appointed to the panel being of the same rank as or of equivalent rank to the complainant. That provides for a mixed service panel. However, can the Minister confirm that it is the intention of the Ministry of Defence that for a single service individual who has made a complaint, the panel will be made up of those in the service of the complainant as far as is practicable? I believe that it is important to both the service and the individual that the service concerned is closely involved in the process. My second question concerns the independent member. The Minister stressed that independence was very important and that there would be no question of the independent member being a member of the Reserve Forces or anything like that. However, I am not clear whether an independent member could be a retired officer, perhaps retired from the services for some years. If there was a reasonable gap, it would mean that the independent member would have a greater knowledge of the services than someone coming in totally from the outside. My third question relates to the Service Complaints Commissioner. Is the commissioner able to take a view about whether a complaint submitted to her, in this case, should invariably be heard by her, or can she take the view that complaints of a certain sort should be dealt with by the normal service process, including a service complaints panel if necessary? It is not clear whether the commissioner has that flexibility, or indeed whether the Minister thinks that that would be desirable. I believe that it should be available, but I should like to be clear about it.