Armed Forces Bill

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 14th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

At end insert “and do propose Amendment 1D as an amendment in lieu—

1D: Page 4, line 27, at end insert—
“(4A) Guidance under subsection (3)(a) must provide that where offences of murder, manslaughter, domestic violence, child abuse, rape or sexual assault with penetration are alleged to have been committed in the United Kingdom, any charges brought against a person subject to service law shall normally be tried in a civilian court unless, by reason of the circumstances, including but not limited to specific naval or military complexity involving the service, trial by court martial is directed by—
(a) in England and Wales, the Director of Public Prosecutions, after consultation with the Attorney General;
(b) in Scotland, the Lord Advocate;
(c) in Northern Ireland, the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland, after consultation with the Attorney General for Northern Ireland.””

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, the Justice Minister, Dominic Raab, speaking on “Today” this morning, said:

“I’m proud of our tradition of freedom in this country. We believe in liberty under the rule of law … We want to reinforce our typical British liberties like freedom of speech, the liberty that guards all the others … trial by jury, that’s a common-law right, very much part of the British tradition.”


In another part of the thicket, the Defence Secretary, Mr Ben Wallace, is seemingly against trial by jury and is acting contrary to the advice of his advisers and the judgment of his departmental Ministers, as Johnny Mercer, the Minister for Defence People and Veterans until April of this year, told us last week. Mr Wallace refuses to accept that, where charges are brought against a person subject to service law for serious cases of murder, manslaughter, rape or serious sexual offences allegedly committed in the United Kingdom by a person subject to service law, there should be a presumption that the accused should have the “common-law right” to trial by jury. Let us spell it out clearly again. If you join the services, you lose the common-law right to trial by jury—which is very much part of the British tradition, as Mr Raab would have it.

In the Commons last week, Sarah Atherton, the Member of Parliament for Wrexham, who has made her way up from the ranks of the Intelligence Corps to the green Benches in the other place and to the chair of the defence sub-committee charged with studying this issue, voted against her own Government and in so doing lost her ministerial appointment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I think the noble and learned Lord overlooks the tradition of the service justice system and why we have such a system. That has been one of its characteristics over decades: that is the character of the system. It exists to serve a particular purpose, which most people in this Chamber acknowledge, and that is why it has different characteristics from the civilian justice system.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has contributed to this debate. Many fine words have been said and two issues have really come forward. The first is the denial of the right to trial by jury to members of the Armed Forces—they sign away that right when they join up. This issue will not go away but will rumble on and on.

The second issue relates to victims and the problems so clearly delineated to Sarah Atherton’s committee. She had representations from more than 4,000 women serving in the Armed Forces, all going the same way. Indeed, one person from an NGO which helps them said she was looking after 600 servicewomen, none of whom wanted trial by court martial; all wanted their right to have a trial in the ordinary courts so that the alleged transgressors could be brought to justice in the ordinary way.

This is absolutely fundamental to the constitution of this country. Regarding what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, said a moment ago, in his press release today Mr Raab talked about the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Slave Trade Act and so on, calling them to his aid in supporting the right to trial by jury. It is a simple point.

I am very conscious that there are good things in this Bill that I have worked for for ages, such as majority verdicts in courts martial. I do not want to see this Bill fail, nor do I want the military to be let loose at this particular time by this Bill falling for lack of time. Therefore, I do not propose to press my amendment, but I hope we will come back to this issue. I hope that that will not be in five years’ time with our next Armed Forces Bill but that, once statistics emerge and show us the true situation, the Government will have the guts to admit that they were wrong.

This is not a historic thing going back decades. Jurisdiction was given to courts martial to try murder, manslaughter and rape in 2006, so this is barely 15 years old. Consequently, it is not a great military tradition— if it is being presented in that way. Up until that time, the service justice system insisted that offences committed by servicemen in the United Kingdom, on the soil of this country, should be tried in the ordinary courts. I hope we get back to that very quickly. I will not press the matter and beg leave to withdraw Motion A1.

Motion A1 withdrawn.