This is the first time I have contributed to this Bill. There are a number of experts in the Chamber on both the legal processes and the military who have far more to say than I do, but as an assiduous parliamentarian I have kept up with proceedings as best I can. As I watched last week’s debate on almost exactly the same amendment, a couple of questions struck me as a layperson that I hope the Minister may be able to answer.
First, it would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton), who last week was unfortunately put in the impossible position of either having to defend and vote with the recommendations of her own inquiry or lose her Government job as a Parliamentary Private Secretary. I commend her for her integrity and fortitude in doing what she thought was the correct thing.
6.15 pm
As I said, I speak as a lay person. I do not have any of the legal background of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) or the military background of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who speaks very eloquently on these matters. When I was watching last week, I could not help but think what would happen if Cressida Dick were to write to the Home Secretary and say, “We’re going to set up a new court and a new system whereby if police officers are accused of rape with penetration and manslaughter or murder, we’re not going to put them in civilian court any more—we’re going to have our own internal process.” There is a zero per cent. chance that the Home Secretary would agree to that process, a zero per cent. chance that this House would agree to it, and a significantly less than zero per cent. chance that the general public would be anything other than disgusted at the thought of somebody like Wayne Couzens, who murdered Sarah Everard, being tried somewhere other than the criminal court where he was tried and convicted. That is my only question regarding the Government’s objection to Lords amendment 1B. There is no way in the world that we would set up that process with, for example, the police, so how on earth can it be justifiable that we would continue with it in other circumstances?