Armed Forces (Service Complaints Commissioner) Regulations 2007

I, too, have just two or three questions, and I should like to thank the Minister for the very good meeting we had in the Ministry of Defence. At that meeting I gave a possible example of troublemakers en masse. I just want to be sure that the commanding officer’s powers of rejection are strong enough so that something that could be a bit of trouble—or perhaps big trouble—can be nipped in the bud. It does not look so good if he simply passes it upwards. It looks to the men and women under his command as if he is not strong enough or big enough to handle it. We are also still a little worried about the independent members, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, said. They need some training. I cannot quite work out where they come from, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Astor, that we always seem in this new vision of the military to get outsiders, like the commissioner, with absolutely no idea of the military ethos or the military way of life. We had this discussion in our debate on prosecuting officers and so on. Although we do not reject this statutory instrument, a lot of hard work and quite a bit of explanation are needed to make certain that it is a good deal. It needs working on a bit more.