Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress has been made on agreeing a protocol for the prosecution of serious crimes in the service justice system where there is concurrent jurisdiction.

The Ministry of Defence is confident that the Service Justice System is capable of dealing with all offences whatever their seriousness and wherever they occur. Therefore, after further and full consideration of the recommendation made by HH Shaun Lyons in the Service Justice System Review on the jurisdiction for murder, manslaughter and rape offences in the UK, the Secretary of State concluded that the existing principle of full concurrency between the service and civilian jurisdictions should be maintained.

Commencement regulations were made earlier this year, bringing section 7 of the Armed Forces Act 2021 into force in full in England and Wales from 1 May 2022, which allows the independent Service and civilian prosecutors to agree a protocol on handling cases where there is concurrent jurisdiction. Decisions on which jurisdiction should deal with criminal offending by Service personnel will continue to be made by the relevant policing and prosecutorial authorities on a case-by-case basis. Where the prosecutors are unable to resolve a disagreement over handling, the civilian prosecutors will have the final say.

The Director of Service Prosecutions and the civilian prosecutors are currently working on a draft protocol, with consultation to launch shortly after this has been agreed.