Armed Forces Bill
House of Lords · Lords Chamber · 2 Sep 2026 · 102 speeches · Official Report
Committee (1st Day) (Continued)
Schedule 3: Protection from domestic abuse and stalking
Amendment 21
Moved by
21: Schedule 3, page 98, line 40, at end insert- “Part 1AService Stalking Protection Notices1A In Part 3 of AFA 2006 (power of arrest, search and entry), after Chapter 1A (inserted by paragraph 1) insert-“Chapter 1BService Stalking Protection Notices74E Power to give a service stalking protection notice(1) An authorised service police officer may give a service stalking protection notice to a person falling within subsection (2) (“P”) if the officer has reasonable grounds for believing that-(a) P has carried out acts associated with stalking against another person, and(b) it is necessary to give the notice to protect that other person from stalking, or the risk of stalking, carried out by P.(2) A person is within this subsection if the person is aged 18 or over and is-(a) subject to service law, or(b) a civilian subject to service discipline.(3) A “service stalking protection notice” is a notice prohibiting P from carrying out acts associated with stalking against the person for whose protection the notice is given.(4) A service stalking protection notice may provide that P-(a) may not contact the person for whose protection the notice is given;(b) may not come within a distance specified in the notice of any premises in which that person lives or any other specified premises.(5) If P lives in premises in which the person for whose protection the notice is given also lives, the notice may also contain provision-(a) prohibiting P from evicting or excluding that person from...
My Lords, I have all three amendments in this group. They aim to improve the arrangements for cases of service stalking. Amendment 21 wants to create a service stalking protection notice-SSPN-by mirroring the existing framework for the service domestic abuse protection notices, giving service police an equivalent power to provide immediate protection orders pending the determination or withdrawal of an application for a service stalking protection order. I am very grateful to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and Aurora New Dawn for their briefings and for correspondence in recent weeks. Before going into the detail of these three amendments, I want to thank the Minister for his letter of a few days ago, following Second Reading. He says very clearly in that letter that the changes I want in order to strengthen the protections against stalking are not necessary because “we fully recognise the importance of ensuring that the Service Police and other relevant personnel have the skills and knowledge necessary to identify stalking behaviour, assess risk and make effective use of the new protective measures”. I am remembering discussions with Ministers in 2012, 2016, 2019 and 2022, when we tried to do the same for non-service stalking arrangements. Every single time we have not put the detail in the Bill it has gone wrong further down the process and has had to come back to Parliament to be corrected because, unfortunately, stalking, which is itself a very unpleasant crime, can quite often...
In 2012, the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group had an independent parliamentary inquiry into stalking law reform, which published its report in February 2012. Many Ministers in many Governments have recognised that laws and practice on managing stalking need to improve. As a member of that inquiry, as well as a victim of a sustained campaign of stalking for three years, some years before that, I have followed the impact of the laws and updated laws over the years. Of one thing I am certain: we must have that detail in both the criminal justice system and the service justice system. That is why these amendments are important. Phrases such as “The Government are committed” and “We fully recognise” are, frankly, not quite enough.
I will return to Amendment 21 later, but I want to start with Amendment 22 for a very important reason: the provision for specialist stalking training. My amendment requires specialist stalking training to be in place before the service stalking protection order regime comes into force to support the effective implementation of the new measures. One of the things the Minister says in the letter is that of course all the service personnel dealing with stalking will be trained properly and effectively. But one of the most important things that needs to happen is that the culture inside the service police force about stalking needs to change completely, and the only way to do that is to make sure that everybody-absolutely everybody -has training. Often, the victim of stalking’s first contact is not with a specialist stalking-trained police officer, and I am sure the same is true inside the service police as well. That is why I tabled that amendment.
The effectiveness of the SSPOs will depend entirely on military personnel being able to recognise stalking, assess risk and respond appropriately, and, given the amendments in the following group, that might also be people who are not police. It could be the commanding officer on a unit who is supposed to be acting on a hearing of behaviour and who may not recognise stalking when they see it. Without it, there remains a significant risk that the new powers will not be implemented effectively in practice. As I have said before, that definitely happens within civilian policing. We are still hearing cases of victims being told that they should be grateful for the admiration of their stalker, and that means that victims do not return to see the police again-they are too frightened to do so.
Returning to Amendment 21, I have already read out the details of exactly what it aims to do. The Bill provides for domestic abuse protection notices. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent mechanism for stalking, and this leaves no means of providing immediate protection while an SSPO application is being pursued, despite the increased risk of serious violence and homicide associated with stalking. That is why we feel that it is important that that is in the Bill.
Finally, Amendment 23 asks for a continuity of protection orders. I refer back to the Minister’s letter, where he says:
“The Bill includes provisions which will ensure that protection continues where a person leaves the Armed Forces, and we will continue to work closely with the civilian police to support effective information sharing and enforcement arrangements”.
Part of the problem we are hearing from victims, whether of domestic abuse or of stalking, which is not covered separately at the moment, is that quite often that liaison is not happening. Again, the reason for this amendment is to have it so clearly on the page that it must be followed through at every level.
It can be quite confusing, particularly where service personnel and the person they have abused are moving into different areas. It may be that only one police force is notified and not another. All those factors can cause fairly major problems. Unfortunately, at the moment the Bill does not provide clarity on how victims will be protected should they or their perpetrators move between military and civilian jurisdictions. That is why we think it is really important to have all three of these amendments.
The Centre for Military Justice has on its website a number of case studies which relate to cases that started as stalking and ended up as murder. It is, I am afraid, very present in the service culture. As we know, there have been many other cases that have not necessarily related to stalking but could have done-it may not have been identified. It is important that these rules are sorted out very clearly. These three amendments would provide cover for three different areas. That is why Amendment 21 wants to create a service stalking protection notice that mirrors that in the civilian world. I beg to move.
My Lords, I regret that I did not sign the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. They have my full support. We have worked together for many years on the issue of stalking, together with the noble Lord who sits in the Chair. I believe that many of the areas in which we worked on stalking in civilian life are pertinent to this Bill because they translate into what is happening in the Armed Forces. Amendment 21 is particularly important. I look forward to hearing the response from my noble friend the Minister, but if the noble Baroness does not think that the response is adequate and wishes to take this forward again on Report, I will certainly be there to support her.
My Lords, I simply endorse everything my noble friend Lady Brinton has said. I do not think there is anything I need to add.
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has offered us a very thoughtful exposition of why further action is required to strengthen the service justice system, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, made an important contribution in support of that. I wholeheartedly concur with the rationale behind the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Last year, I brought this issue to the attention of the House during our debates on the then Armed Forces Commissioner Bill, as I am sure noble Lords will recall. During the progress of that Bill, I was particularly keen to give the new commissioner the power to investigate whistleblowing concerns, particularly relating to sexual misconduct. Although my specific proposal did not materialise, we did get a government commitment to a whistleblowing and defence review, for which I am very grateful to both the department and the Minister personally. That really important piece of work has now been concluded-I must thank the Minister for sharing it with me prior to the finalisation of the draft report, which greatly encouraged me. I certainly look forward to its publication in due course. The Minister might be able to share with the Chamber whether we have a date for publication of that report. I say at the outset that the noble Baroness and I are on the same page in ensuring that cases such as that of Jaysley Beck never happen again. The Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey found that 13% of women in our forces had been subject...
First, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for bringing forward these crucial and really important amendments, and my noble friend Lady Royall for what she said in support of them. On the point about the whistleblower review raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie-I know the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and her noble friend Lady Kramer have also been involved in looking at that-we hope to publish it, and the expectation is that we will do that in the next two weeks. I hope that is of some reassurance. The idea is to have that published with a Written Ministerial Statement. As soon as I have absolute certainty about that, I will let both noble Baronesses know. In answer to what specifically the Government are doing to try to tackle some of the culture with respect to women and girls and protection in those circumstances, the whistleblower review is one part of that. The contributions that both noble Baronesses made have substantially improved what the Government were proposing, so I am grateful for that. I will just make a couple of general remarks before coming to the specifics of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness. The Government are clear that stalking is a serious and often escalating crime that can have a devastating impact on victims and their families, and we are committed to ensuring that victims are protected, perpetrators are held to account and agencies have the powers that they need to intervene at the earliest opportunity. As has been said,...
I think it is important for the Committee and my noble friend to understand that there is an interim measure, and we can debate whether that is sufficient. In fact, just to repeat, it is called an interim service stalking protection order. This order allows the court to impose temporary protective measures on the defendant before the main application is determined by the service court and can be made on application by the same provost marshal who submitted the main application, either at the same time or subsequently. This ensures that urgent protection can be granted without waiting for the final decision on the substantive order. It also maintains parity with the civilian criminal justice system-a point that my noble friend Lady Royall made as well-ensuring that victims of stalking in the service justice system are afforded the same protections as those available to stalking victims in England and Wales.
Turning to Amendment 22, I would like to reassure the Committee that the Government recognise the importance of the service police having the appropriate skills and training; again, this is a point I made in the letter to the noble Baroness. I will come to some of the doubts that she expressed. All branches of the service police engage with the College of Policing on training. They continue to broadly align with national standards under the College of Policing’s professionalising investigations programme. This helps to ensure that service police receive training comparable to that provided to their civilian counterparts, adapted where necessary to reflect the unique demands of service life and the SJS. As a result, victims in the defence community can have confidence that the service police are able to effectively respond to incidents of stalking and provide appropriate support and safety.
This is a really important point: for the introduction of the new protection orders, we will work with stakeholders to ensure that commanding officers, service police and front-line personnel will receive refreshed and repeat training, reinforced by clear leadership expectations. We do not want to just pass the legislation and think, “Tick the box, job done”. We understand, exactly as the noble Baroness pointed out, that training is often promised and passed in legislation, yet the reality is that it is not followed through. Our desire is to make sure that that is not the case, so we will keep delivery under review and update training as practice and learning develop. This approach is supported by the Armed Forces charity, the Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s Families Association, which has emphasised that clear protective measures, backed by confidence and understanding in how they operate, are key to safer reporting and effective safeguarding.
The orders will be supported by statutory guidance, which will draw on relevant Home Office guidance while being tailored to the SJS context. It will set out necessary processes and assist the service police on the effective use of protection orders. Existing training materials and guidance will be updated to reflect the changes made by the Bill.
Turning to Amendment 23, I would like to be clear that the continuity of protection for victims is a vital component of all the protection orders that can be made in the SJS under the provisions in the Bill, not only the service stalking protection orders. I say to the noble Baroness that that is why government amendments were made to the Bill in the other place to address the legislative gap identified by the Director of Service Prosecutions, ensuring that service protection orders can be made by a service court in relation to a service offence, even if the person has left the Armed Forces. That is now set out in Part 7 of Schedule 3 to the Bill: on page 117, under “Amendment of Stalking Protection Act 2019”, there is a list of the ways in which we have tried to reflect the very points that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, quite rightly and importantly made about the need for automatic conversion of a service protection order to a civilian protection order once a person leaves the services. I think that is a really important step forward. That amendment was made in the Commons and is before your Lordships’ House.
To support transition and effective operation of an order once a person leaves the military, we will work closely with civilian policing on information sharing. The noble Baroness made the really important point that data, information and so on are too often not shared, so we have to do better and ensure that it is accurate, timely and transparent.
I hope that, with what I have said, I have reassured the noble Baroness to an extent about some of the steps forward that the Government have tried to take and some of the improvements and changes that have been made to the Bill-particularly the inclusion of that conversion when somebody leaves and moves from military service into civilian life, but also the inclusion of interim service stalking protection orders.
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister and the other speakers, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, with whom I have worked for many years on this; I am very grateful for her support. I am also grateful that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, has shown some interest in this. I think the point raised about whistleblowing and making sure it is part of this package as well becomes vital. As we discussed yesterday on the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, it is absolutely key to changing the culture, which is what one wants in this sort of situation. I am also very grateful to the Minister for the detail he has gone into. I should have made it clearer that the service stalking protection notices that my amendment seeks to create are different from the interim stalking orders, not least because they would be a tool that can be used by a police officer without having to go to a court. It is like the first step on the ladder. Going to court takes time and you have to assemble a case for it to be heard, whether by a magistrate or in another court. Therefore, it is a much more serious document, with more serious implications. The point about these notices is that they are a tool to make the stalker aware very quickly that there are now certain rules they must follow and that things will escalate quickly if they disobey them. I am looking at the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, because I cannot remember what year they were added, but they were added because there was this...
Of course.
I thank the Minister. I am very grateful to him for that. On that basis, depending on the meeting, I may bring an amendment back on Report, but for now I withdraw Amendment 21.
Amendment 21 withdrawn.
Amendments 22 and 23 not moved.
Schedule 3 agreed.
Clauses 8 to 10 agreed.
Amendment 24
Moved by
24: After Clause 10, insert the following new Clause- “Domestic abuse and summary hearings for assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm(1) A commanding officer may not hear summarily a charge of assault or occasioning actual bodily harm where the alleged conduct amounts to, or is alleged to amount to, domestic abuse.(2) In any case to which subsection (1) applies, the allegation must be referred to a service police force for investigation or the Director of Service Prosecutions for consideration of prosecution before the Court Martial or such other court as has jurisdiction.(3) In this section, “domestic abuse” has the same meaning as in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment seeks to remove the power of a commanding officer to hear an allegation of ABH when there is a domestic abuse element to the allegation.
My Lords, I have three amendments in this group and, while they are not related to stalking, the principles behind tabling them are not dissimilar. They specify more detail than I think the Minister is comfortable with, but each states very clearly where the boundaries are on a number of issues. Amendment 24 seeks to remove the power of a commanding officer to hear an allegation of assault or assault occasioning actual bodily harm when there is a domestic abuse element in the allegation. The amendment says that, in those circumstances, the case must be referred to a service police force for investigation or to the Director of Service Prosecutions for consideration of prosecution before that court martial or other such court has jurisdiction. This whole area around the role of the commanding officer, who will have a very different knowledge of individuals, not just those who report to them but also perhaps their families who are involved in this case, is a sensitive one. We have to compare this with the position of the service police or prosecutors, who will not have that personal knowledge of all the individuals. It is obvious that any more serious crime that was committed would not be permitted to be heard by the commanding officer-and yet, a crime involving assault or ABH and domestic abuse can at present be heard summarily by the commanding officer. The reason for concern is that the domestic abuse guidance for those involved in investigating DA and associated crimes are...
My Lords, I have been listening very carefully to the noble Baroness; it is obviously a matter of great importance. I have a question to which she might be able to give an answer when she winds up on this debate. Amendment 24 includes the phrase: “or is alleged to amount to”. Am I right in thinking that, under this amendment, it would be entirely for the alleged victim to make the allegation that it involves domestic abuse, and that would be enough to trigger the provisions outlined in the amendment? Secondly, I would like to ask whether this amendment is being tabled in the light of any specific examples that the noble Baroness knows of, which might assist the Committee in understanding and supporting the amendment.
My Lords, I rise briefly to support, in particular, Amendments 24 and 25. That is not to say that we on these Benches are not giving our full support to my noble friend Lady Brinton for Amendment 26, but I think the point of Amendment 24, taking the chain of command out of anything to do with domestic abuse and ABH, is very important. I very strongly want us, if the Committee does not want to press the Minister to accept the amendment as phrased, to find a way of amending the legislation such that it can be taken into consideration, so that an allegation of domestic abuse would not go to the commanding officer. If this amendment does not work, please can the Minister come back with something that the Government feel is appropriate? On Amendment 25, as with others, my noble friend Lady Brinton has picked up the danger of people falling between service justice and civilian justice. If we need to amend the legislation then that is something we should be doing. Clearly, we do not want individuals slipping between the two.
My Lords, in a similar vein to the previous group, I think I am pretty well on a similar page to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, particularly on Amendment 25, which seeks to ensure that the service victims’ code cannot be restricted to exclude victims of sexual offences or domestic abuse. The amendment seems to me to close what looks like an unintentional gap. A servicewoman whose case is prosecuted in the civilian courts should not receive a lesser standard of service-provided support than one whose case proceeds through the service justice system. That seems to me a matter of basic fairness. I hope that the Minister will consider the merits of this amendment or at least explain clearly why, and in what circumstances, the Government believe that such an exclusion could ever be justified. Amendment 24, I suggest, requires greater caution. I infer from the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that she recognises that this has to be approached with care. The amendment would remove a commanding officer’s power to hear summarily any charge of assault or actual bodily harm where the conduct amounts to domestic abuse, requiring referral instead to the service police or the Director of Service Prosecutions. I do not dismiss the intention behind the amendment. There is a real and understandable concern that summary hearings may not be the right forum for allegations of this seriousness and that commanding officers, however well-intentioned, may not always be best placed to...
My Lords, again, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for bringing forward these amendments, which are of significance to us all as we seek to improve the current situation. I also thank my noble friend Lord Stansgate for his contribution, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Goldie. I will address some of the points they made in my remarks. On Amendment 24, as set out by the Government in the other place, we are already committed to reviewing Schedule 1 criminal conduct offences for summary hearings and Schedule 2 serious service offences in the Armed Forces Act 2006 as part of implementing this Bill following Royal Assent. However-and I hope this speaks to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie-for offences related to domestic abuse such as assault or assault occasioning actual bodily harm, the necessary changes will be made by secondary legislation following the review. That would obviously involve consultation with a wide range of people. Schedule 1 offences are summary offences and therefore the commanding officer has a role. Obviously, Schedule 2 offences are more serious. We are looking at what we do with respect to that and what changes may or may not be made. The proposed changes would be consistent with current defence policy, which is that such cases should always be referred to the relevant police authority so that they can consider investigating them. Where offences are removed from Schedule 1 and added to the more serious Schedule 2,...
I am very grateful to all the speakers. To address the question asked by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, I think he is looking at that clause the wrong way round. He asked about the definition of actual bodily harm, where the alleged conduct “amounts to” or “is alleged to amount to”. I think one is an incident that has been witnessed by someone who is not the victim, and the other may be where it has not and therefore it is a “he said/she said” situation. That is my understanding of why the wording is as it is. I hope that explanation helps him. I am grateful for the support of my noble friend Lady Smith. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, made an important point about the chain of command, and I do not underestimate that at all. That takes me to my response to the Minister. I am glad that there is a review, and I am sure there are many other issues as well as the ones that I have raised. However, the message that I have been picking up from the organisations and individuals I have been talking to is that in 2026 it may not be completely appropriate in some of these justice issues for the old-style chain of command to remain with the commander. If the review is going to be looking at that, I will be content not to do anything at the next stage, and ditto with the secondary legislation. If I am unhappy with the secondary legislation, I may return to the next Armed Forces Bill after this one. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 24 withdrawn.
Clause 11: Victims of service offences
Amendment 25 not moved.
Clause 11 agreed.
Clauses 12 to 14 agreed.
Amendment 26 not moved.
Clause 15 agreed.
Clause 16: Pre-charge custody
Amendment 27
Moved by
27: Clause 16, page 36, line 22, leave out paragraph (b) Member’s explanatory statement This amendment, and others in the name of the Lord Bishop of Norwich, seek to remove the requirement that an offence must be a “serious offence” for a Provost Marshal to be the appropriate authority and instead allow the Provost Marshal to be an appropriate authority in all service offences.
My Lords, in moving Amendment 27, I will speak also to Amendments 28 to 34 in my name; I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, for her support. I declare an interest, both for this series of amendments and for my contributions in Committee earlier today, as the father of a soldier. The amendments I am proposing are all interlinked and aim to give service police the same authority to authorise and/or request pre-charge custody as is given to commanding officers in all offences. I am grateful to the Minister for his work on the Bill and for the generosity of his time in speaking to me over the weekend about the amendments in my name. The Bill initiates the change to give service police power to authorise custody in some circumstances. This is a very welcome change and a step in the right direction in making service police investigations truly independent of the chain of command. However, in my view, it does not go far enough by failing to give service police power to authorise custody in all circumstances. The current wording of the Bill allows service police to authorise custody only for specific offences while allowing the commanding officer to authorise custody in all circumstances. The Bill creates the definition of “serious offence” in Clause 16(3), which sets out the offences that service police can authorise custody for. However, this definition does not include key offences such as battery, harassment and stalking, as has already been mentioned, even in the...
My Lords, I rise to give my verbal support to the amendments in the name of the right reverend Prelate, which I have co-signed. I did so precisely because I think there are areas that need to be further explored. In particular, the points that he raised so eloquently need to be considered. To what extent are commanding officers or their delegated officers going to be available at precisely the sort of time when there might be a need for considering custody? It might well be the time that commanding officers are not available. It would be much more sensible to have a single approach where we have police who have the training and who understand what the requirements are. There is also the issue of impartiality, which came up in the previous group of amendments. Although I understand the reservations of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, about taking commanding officers out of the equation, there might at times also be a case for a degree of objectivity. These amendments seem to be straightforward, logical and arguably desirable, so I now expect the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, to explain to us why they do not quite think this is the case.
My Lords, I wish to make it clear that I tabled the Clause 16 stand part notice not because I oppose the changes the Government are making but because I seek some clarifications on the intended effects and operation of the changes being made. I am particularly grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich for his engagement with my noble friend Lord Minto on this matter. He offered an insightful explanation of the effects of Clause 16 and the intention behind his amendments, which I will comment on in due course. I also recognise the pressure that has built since the Etherton review for greater independence in the handling of service justice matters, but Clause 16 makes a significant change to how pre-charge detention operates. As I understand it, Clause 16 amends Sections 98 and 99 of the 2006 Act so that the authorisation and review of custody without charge-currently a function of the commanding officer-is transferred to a newly defined “appropriate authority”. The commanding officer will no longer be the person to whom an arrest and its grounds must be reported, nor the person who orders release once the grounds for detention fall away. In cases involving serious offences, the Bill goes further, requiring matters to be reported beyond the commanding officer altogether. I press the Minister on what this means in practice. Custody decisions sit close to the heart of a commanding officer’s responsibility for the people under his or her command. A commanding...
My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich for tabling his important amendments and for the debate and discussion that will take place in Committee as a consequence. I also thank him for his time over the weekend. We had a very interesting conversation about these and some further amendments he has tabled in later groups. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and others who have contributed. Rather than addressing the specific amendments, and I apologise that I may have to speak for a few minutes to put some important points on the record, I will start by speaking to Clause 16. Under the current legal framework of the Armed Forces Act, only the commanding officer of a suspect can authorise their pre-charge custody after arrest. In routine cases, that remains appropriate-which goes back to the points that the noble Baroness made about the role of commanding officers-but in serious and fast-moving investigations, the need to obtain that authorisation can create avoidable delay, risk the loss or contamination of evidence, and increase the risk of further harm to victims, witnesses or the suspect.
These risks are more acute following the establishment of the Defence Serious Crime Command. Its case load is increasingly complex, often involving offences where speed and specialist investigative judgment are essential. Clause 16 responds directly to that operational reality. The noble Baroness asked what triggered the Government to consider the need for change. It was the establishment of the Defence Serious Crime Command, which she was a major part of, and the serious investigations that it undertakes, which caused us to reflect on the need to change some of the arrangements for pre-charge custody.
Clause 16 therefore creates a focused power for the provost marshals, and their suitably trained delegated officers-an Army major, or equivalent in the other services-within the service police, to authorise pre-charge custody for serious offences without first having to seek authorisation from the suspect’s commanding officer. The power is deliberately confined, as I will explain later, to arrests for Schedule 2, serious service offences, offences that would attract a sentence of over two years’ imprisonment in the civilian criminal justice system, and attempted versions of those offences. It will also apply to Schedule 1, Part 2 offences, specific listed criminal conduct offences that a commanding officer may deal with at a summary hearing, where a higher authority has considered the matter and not given permission for the commanding officer to hear the matter summarily, and to attempted versions of those offences.
At Second Reading, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, asked a question about the definition of a serious service offence in Part 1 of the Armed Forces (Powers of Stop and Search, Search, Seizure and Retention) Order 2009. The 2009 order includes the following offences-and their related inchoate offences such as aiding, abetting and attempt-which are not included in the Clause 16 definition: Section 11(1) of the Armed Forces Act 2006, using violence against a superior officer; Section 18(3) or (4), offences relating to official documents and records with intent to deceive; and Section 24(1), intentional or reckless damage to, or loss of, public or service property.
In practice, these offences are dealt with by commanding officers, rather than the service police, despite the high maximum sentences available for them. Clause 16 is not intended to apply to all offences. Rather, it is intentionally limited to offences that fall outside the commanding officer’s investigative jurisdiction. It is worth noting that the 2009 order limits the scope in this way in sub-paragraph (b) of Part 1, which refers to:
“Any other service offence which may not be dealt with at a summary hearing by a Commanding Officer”.
The service police may start the investigation for the 2009 order offences, and would then need to defer to the commanding officer for authorisation to detain pre-charge, as is the case now. To mitigate any risk of a provost marshal, or a suitably qualified service police officer, making an incorrect authorisation for pre-charge custody, clear guidance will be provided on the use of the authorisation process.
Clause 16 will further apply only where prescribed circumstances exist, such as repeated assaults on two or more occasions, or where a more senior rank has inflicted serious injury on a service person. This is not an unchecked expansion of detention powers; it applies existing pre-charge custody powers, and the associated safeguards, to the four provost marshals. These safeguards remain robust: custody must be reviewed every 12 hours, and any detention beyond 48 hours must be approved by a judge advocate.
Crucially-the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, may be interested in this, given the point she made-Clause 16 preserves the central role of the commanding officer in discipline and operational effectiveness. It does not remove the commanding officer from the process. They must still be notified if a suspect is taken into custody, and that notification must take place within six hours. In exceptional cases, commanding officers will also retain the power to authorise custody, preserving operational flexibility. Where they do so, they must notify the provost marshal for serious crime and the provost marshal of the relevant service police force, ensuring that oversight is maintained.
Turning to the amendments in this group, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich for his views and acknowledge his concerns around Clause 16. As I have explained, the Government’s view is that, in its current form, it makes a targeted and proportionate change to the authorisation process for pre-charge custody in the most serious service police investigations. I will look at the particular issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, raised about the availability of commanding officers to make these decisions.
As I have stated throughout this speech, in routine cases commanding officers authorising pre-charge custody remains appropriate. However, for investigations of more serious offences, a focused power for provost marshals, confined to offences outside the commanding officer’s summary jurisdiction, is created. Therefore, the amendments seeking to expand the provost marshal’s custody authorisation powers to the investigation of all offences, not just serious offences, undermine, in the Government’s view, the preservation of the commanding officer’s centrality to custody decisions in appropriate non-serious contexts.
Amendment 34, seeking to allow provost marshals to apply to a judge advocate for an extension of custody in all cases, is therefore not required. Commanding officers will retain their powers to authorise custody in some cases and therefore continue to apply for an extension under Section 101(1). Provost marshals’ powers applying for an extension to custody without charge for these cases in which they have authorised custody is covered by new subsection (1A) of Section 101.
Amendment 29, on the removal of reporting requirements to the provost marshal for serious crime and the substitution of the provost marshal of the investigating service police force, is additionally therefore not required. This part of the clause is about reporting to the appropriate authorities on arrest and, when an arrest is made for a serious offence, notifications to both the provost marshal for serious crime and the other relevant provost marshals are required for deconfliction purposes. The way the clause is drafted ensures that all provost marshals are covered appropriately, as per Section 375 of the Armed Forces Act, which contains the definitions relating to service police.
I apologise again to the Committee for going through this in significant detail but, as we continue our discussions around this, I thought it important to lay out the Government’s view and the rationale for some of the changes we are making with respect to provost marshals in serious cases and for retaining the authority of the commanding officer with respect to summary cases: in particular, trying to resolve the need to move quickly because of some of the serious crimes that the new Defence Serious Crime Command is dealing with, while not undermining the authority and operational effectiveness of the commanding officer. With that, I ask the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich to withdraw his amendment.
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response and for agreeing to look further at the availability of commanding officers. We should remember that, very often, it is their delegated person being dealt with. They can frequently not have had their required training in this area, which means that it is actually the Military Police advising the delegated person to make the decision to tell the Military Police. There are some things to explore there within the Ministry of Defence and I am grateful that the noble Lord has agreed to look at that further. The key thing here is speed and simplicity. Both are needed in the custody process so that there is justice for all and decisions are made in a timely way, so that the due process can happen. I am grateful to the other speakers-to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, for her support and to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for her very considered reflections and challenge. I look forward to seeing how this progresses with the Minister’s response and I reserve the right to bring this back on Report, but for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment 27 withdrawn.
Amendments 28 to 34 not moved.
Clause 16 agreed.
Clauses 17 to 20 agreed.
Clause 21: Qualification for membership of the Court Martial
Amendment 35
Moved by
35: Clause 21, page 40, line 13, at end insert- “(iii) a retired holder of such a rank.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment would add retired officers to those qualified for membership of the Court Martial.
My Lords, we are getting into the home straight, so I will try to accelerate the pace. The effect of Amendment 35, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Minto, would be to add retired holders of a qualifying rank to those eligible to sit as members of a court martial. The problem this amendment addresses is a simple one of numbers: court martial panels must be drawn from officers of sufficient seniority and, crucially, sufficient distance from the defendant to ensure impartiality. Where the defendant is of relatively junior rank, that pool is large enough, but where the defendant is a senior officer, the pool of serving officers senior enough and unconnected enough to sit in judgment shrinks dramatically. The Committee will recall that, when the service justice system last had to try an officer of very senior rank, the court administration unit struggled to assemble a panel at all, precisely because every available serving officer of sufficient seniority had some prior connection to the defendant, whether through shared courses, shared postings or simply the small world that senior rank inevitably creates. It was only the defendant’s departure from the service by the time of trial that allowed the difficulty to be resolved through the use of civilians, a workaround unavailable had he still been serving. This is an example that the Minister himself used to defend the Government’s changes to the court martial through the Armed Forces (Court Martial) (Amendment)...
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford is, unfortunately, unable to be in his place tonight, so I am speaking on his Amendment 36. In October 2006, my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford moved an amendment to the Armed Forces Bill, with the support of Air Marshal Lord Garden to confine sentencing in court martials to the presiding judge advocate alone, following consultation with the members of the panel. He said: “The area of sentencing for criminal offences is difficult and complex. Sentencing is an exercise for which the members of the panel have no training whatever. They do not attend sentencing conferences or have the training on sentencing that the most junior assistant recorder in this country receives, let alone any further or higher training for dealing with serious offences”. The 2006 Act was a major reform of the system but did not include this particular amendment. It did, however, abolish the pre-existing review system whereby the Judge Advocate-General reviewed the conviction and sentence before they became final, a process which historically had operated as a check on the sentence passed. The 2006 Act introduced a service supervision and punishment order under Section 173, which imposes a quite concrete restriction on a serving soldier’s movements. A service community order employs the community order requirements contained in the civilian sentencing legislation, adapted for service courts. The court martial can impose one or more requirements on...
My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken in the debate and for the thoughtful comments they have made. To deal with the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, the information I have is that there is no shortage of court martial board members. I can give the figures that the ministry has provided to me: in 2025, 447 service personnel were sworn in for 283 trials, and there has been no difficulty in constituting boards. The court martial already draws from a sufficiently wide pool of eligible personnel, so, as such, the amendment is not required. If she has more detail that she would like to share, obviously that would be useful, but that is the information that I have been provided with. It is vital that board members are up-to-date and possess the necessary practical experience of the latest single service policies, procedures, standards and values. For that reason, individuals who have left service even recently may no longer be as acquainted with changes across the services since their departure. The Government acknowledge the valuable, meaningful contribution that veterans continue to make across our society. However, we do not consider it necessary or appropriate to seek to draw on their past experience and knowledge for service on a court martial board, particularly when there is no shortage of board members. Amendment 36, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, ably spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, seeks to remove military lay board...
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for his response to my amendment. My concern focused on the specific issue of where a senior officer faces a court martial. The pool of eligible serving officers able to sit without any prior connection to the defendant is small. My question was not one of overall capacity, which was, I suggest, the issue that the Minister chose to address. I do not want to make a meal of this-can the Minister go back to his officials and seek an assurance that they are not aware of any specific case of it proving difficult to man a court martial where a senior officer is charged with an offence and it is important and necessary to secure a pool of comparably qualified officers?
Of course.
In that case, I am grateful to the Minister and I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 35 withdrawn.
Clause 21 agreed.
Clauses 22 to 27 agreed.
Amendment 36 not moved.
Amendment 37
Moved by
37: After Clause 27, insert the following new Clause- “Removal of presumption of suspended sentence orders(1) The Armed Forces Act 2006 is amended as follows.(2) In section 200 (suspended sentence orders), omit subsections (1)(aa) and (1)(ba).(3) Omit section 200ZB.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment removes the presumption of a suspended sentence order from the service justice system.
My Lords, Amendment 37 is tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Minto. This issue has caused deep disquiet on these Benches for many months. We have opposed the Government’s introduction of a presumption of suspended sentence orders for sentences of over 12 months on numerous occasions. We opposed this presumption when it was introduced in the Sentencing Act and we opposed it again when the Government resisted our attempts during the passage of the Crime and Policing Bill to carve out exceptions for repeat and dangerous offenders. My noble friend Lord Davies of Gower warned this House at the time that, under this presumption, a stalker could breach a protection order or a suspended sentence order and still never see the inside of a prison cell. My noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie pressed similarly and rightly for sexual offenders and domestic abusers to be excluded from a presumption that treats a 12-month threshold as an almost automatic bar to custody. The Government and the Liberal Democrats resisted both attempts. We believe that events will prove these warnings correct and we do not resile from them now. Our objection to this presumption has never been confined to any one category of offence. It is a broader objection that Parliament should not instruct judges as a starting proposition to look away from custody before they have even considered the facts before them. The evidence on breach itself gives us little comfort. Where a suspended sentence...
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for introducing her amendment and clarifying why she believes it is necessary. What I would be grateful to hear from the Minister is an explanation or clarification about whether a breach of a suspended sentence order would not then trigger the sentence. It is one thing having a presumption of a suspended sentence order in the first instance, but if there are then cases of people breaching those orders, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, is right that that seems to be decriminalisation. Surely that is not the intention of the legislation as it stands. If it is, can the Minister tell us whether he feels that is undermining service justice?
It was all going so well. I do not think there is a unanimity of view on this one. I start, however, by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for moving the amendment. I think we will probably end up debating this issue again; we may all be a little bit more excitable in the way that we deal with it. In answer to the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, of course a breach of an order means someone can be recalled. That is like any court order; if it is breached, the court has the power, capability and capacity to bring people back and deal with it appropriately then. Amendment 37 would remove the presumption of suspended sentence orders from the service justice system. In doing so, it would reverse a reform that was introduced to align the service justice system’s sentencing practices with wider government sentencing policy while preserving the unique requirements of service discipline. The presumption forms part of the Government’s response to former Lord Chancellor David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review 2025, which recommended reducing the use of short custodial sentences and increasing the availability of suspended sentence orders. The policy was based on evidence that short custodial sentences are often less effective at reducing reoffending than community-based interventions. It therefore sought to encourage rehabilitative disposals that better support longer-term public protection. The reform-this is the crucial point-does not remove the ability of...
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and indeed to the Minister for his response. We are not going to conclude with consensus between us, but we shall bear our disagreement with a smile upon each other. The Minister argued that the alignment with the civilian system is what justifies this change, but service justice depends on proportionate case-by-case judgment and the maintenance of discipline. I have heard nothing today to persuade me that a presumption of suspended sentence orders is desirable, sensible or right. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but the Minister is correct in his prediction: I reserve the right to return to this on Report.
Amendment 37 withdrawn.
Clauses 28 to 31 agreed.
Schedule 4 agreed.
Clauses 32 to 36 agreed.
House resumed.
House adjourned at 9.56 pm.