I am pleased to respond to this debate and acknowledge the huge importance of the work carried out by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton). It was good to hear her speak in the main Chamber earlier.
We institutionally acknowledge that this is a groundbreaking piece of work, and we will use it as a positive lever, as I have said, to accelerate the necessary institutional change in support of all women serving in the armed forces. I note that the scale of the involvement of former and currently serving female service personnel was significant. The historical arc that their service represented, reaching back to Aden and going through to the 1990s and very recent years, was extremely useful. I hope that the report pointed out some positive improvements, but of course it also illustrated very clearly the huge amount of work that needs to be done. I reiterate that we see this as a very positive opportunity to drive change. That was why the Defence Secretary, when he was approached by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham, was very keen that serving female personnel be allowed to give their testimony. He thought that that was a necessary factor in improving the utility and currency of the report, and we are very pleased to see the outcome.
I am grateful for the several contributions in the debate. As well as the speech from my hon. Friend, I was very pleased to hear from the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) and the hon. Members for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock). I will quickly address some of the questions before making some broader remarks.
I will address the issue of concurrent jurisdiction straight up. It was a common theme of today’s debate and was, of course, before the House on Monday night. Regarding some of the statistical analysis that has been done this afternoon, I think it will be useful if I point out that according to MOD figures, from June to November this year, there was a 50% conviction rate within the service justice system for rape offences. Over the past six months, of the 13 individuals tried at court martial for rape, six were found guilty and seven were found not guilty. That is why we have confidence in our conviction rate, but of course, we entirely acknowledge that it is too low, and that we must have a wholehearted institutional drive for better outcomes.
In the broader context, though, we regard it as important that we maintain concurrency as part of the service justice system capability. We are cautious, lest salami-slicing capabilities from the service justice system undermines the viability of the whole organisation. That is particularly the case because, as defence, we are expeditionary by design—designed to travel the world and war fight on behalf of the state—and we need an expeditionary justice system to travel with us. Of course, the numbers are very small and the scenarios often unique, but given that we are expeditionary by design and are sometimes required to operate in ungoverned spaces where there is no legal framework, we regard the ability to have an expeditionary service justice system as an important component, which we do not want to undermine by removing concurrency.