Robert Key (Salisbury) (Con): I congratulate the Secretary of State on winning the game of musical chairs that has been running for about 20 years. He is the final Secretary of State to sit on the chair when all his predecessors have been denied one. It falls to him to win the elusive prize of achieving a tri-service Act. That is purple prose in any language. I also congratulate the Bill team at the Ministry of Defence and the parliamentary draftsmen and Treasury counsel on what has been a mammoth operation. With previous Armed Forces Bills, we have heard some quite extraordinary reasons—or should I say excuses?—wheeled out about why progress has not been made. That has never been the fault of the Ministry of Defence, which has always seen the merit of updating service law. So I am absolutely delighted that the Bill has appeared before the House, and I warmly support it.

I also support the legislative process that we are about to use. I believe strongly in the value of pre-legislative scrutiny, for the reasons that Members on both sides of the House have already mentioned. I have argued for 15 years that we should use such a process for other legislation because it has enormous advantages, not least because it empowers the citizens of this country to have a direct input in the way in which policy making becomes law. That must be good for democracy, and it might even encourage people to vote.

There is no part of my constituency that is not directed affected by the Ministry of Defence and the military and civilian people whom it employs. It contains Land Command, Larkhill, Bulford, Porton Down, Winterbourne Gunner, Boscombe Down, Salisbury plain training area, Westdown camp and Rollestone camp. There are low-flying zones and artillery ranges, and more than 11,000 Ministry of Defence employees. The Bill is thus important to many of my constituents.

I agree with the conclusions of the Defence Committee in its first report of the current Session. It is important that the Bill establishes

"an independent voice in the consideration of complaints",

but that is not in itself sufficient. I agree with the Committee, of which I have the honour to be a member a second time around, that we should

"urge the Government to table amendments to strengthen the degree of independence"

of the complaints system in the Army—I shall come back to that in a moment.

I agree with the Committee's recommendation that we should encourage the Ministry of Defence to publish

"secondary legislation relating to the Armed Forces Bill, in draft"—

if that is all that can be achieved—to inform our scrutiny of the Bill. We are told throughout the Bill that the Secretary of State will make regulations on almost all matters of detail. We need sight of such regulations, and so do the public.

I also endorse what every person who has mentioned the matter has said so far: there is a need for annual review of service discipline legislation. I understand Ministers being persuaded—probably by the Treasury—that it would save a bob or two if we did not need to have this performance. I can understand the Whips Office saying, "You don't really need yet more legislation, do you? Surely once every five years will do." I hope that Defence Ministers will be able to win the day because I suspect that the idea did not come from them. After all, the House of Commons has reviewed the matter every year since 1689. Parliament should not yield willingly such an important check on the power of the Executive.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: May I reinforce the point that my hon. Friend is making? Under the Bill of Rights 1689, no standing Army may be maintained without the authority of Parliament. Is it not the case that this is the modern procedure by which the Bill of Rights is respected by the House, and that removing the provision would thus have serious constitutional implications?

Robert Key: My hon. Friend is entirely right.

John Reid: I agree entirely that the principle under the Bill of Rights that every Parliament should reauthorise that the standing Army should be maintained. That is why we have agreed that there should be a Bill each Parliament. The question is whether we need to legislate every year. The hon. Gentleman is half right because the suggestion did not originate in the Ministry of Defence, but he was wrong to say that it was the responsibility of the Treasury or the Whips Office.

Robert Key: I am grateful to the Secretary of State. In that case, we shall have great fun working out whodunit.

Like the Secretary of State, I served on each of the previous two Armed Forces Bills. He will recall that those Bills turned out to be Christmas-tree Bills, not only because their Second Readings occurred just before Christmas, but because the original Bill became festooned with more and more decorations. I thus wish to ask Defence Ministers to explain several aspects of the Christmas-tree nature of this Bill.

Clause 35 is titled "Annoyance by flying". The military has to undertake low flying and MPs have to be sympathetic about the situation in their constituencies each year. However, neither the clause nor the explanatory notes gives anything like a convincing reason why we need to put yet another obstacle in the way of military pilots. The clause says that it is an offence if a person subject to service law flies an aircraft so as to annoy or be likely to annoy anyone, unless he can reasonably avoid flying in such a way. Come on, Mr. Deputy Speaker—is this a military matter, or is it not? We are talking about not recreational flying from grass strips, but fast jets, Chinooks and other kinds of aircraft and helicopters that are on military business. If I am fortunate enough to be chosen to serve on the Committee that considers the Bill, I shall be pressing Ministers for an answer to why we need clause 35.

Clause 42 is entitled "Criminal conduct". The Secretary of State touched on an important matter in his opening comments. It is important for people to realise that the Bill does not address torture or any other criminal offence that is not necessarily a military offence. Clause 42 points out that anything that is a criminal offence in British law is an offence if it is carried out by members of HM forces, wherever they are in the world—that is my understanding of the clause, but perhaps the Minister will clarify that. That is important because it means that wherever in the world British service personnel are, they will always occupy the moral high ground when it comes to making decisions of life or death. It will also apply to the behaviour of members of HM forces, whether they are in Ayia Napa or elsewhere in Cyprus. We did not cover ourselves in glory in Cyprus 40 or 50 years ago and did not always occupy the moral high ground. I do not think that we did that with internment in Northern Ireland, or that the Americans have done so in Guantanamo Bay. We want to maintain the honour, courage and bravery of Her Majesty's forces and their personnel.

Clause 51 relates to the jurisdiction of the service civilian court. It is important because many people do not realise that the Bill applies to civilians who are subject to service discipline. Indeed, it can apply to the children of serving personnel overseas. It applies to contractors and service families, so the jurisdiction of the service civilian court is important. I will want to probe in Committee to find out exactly how the situation changes under the Bill.

Mr. Arbuthnot: While my hon. Friend is in a gap between clauses, may I take him back to a point that he made about clause 35 and the annoyance caused by low flying? I, too, was worried about the clause when I first read it. I am worried that if the Ministry of Defence receives several complaints about low flying from people in a certain area, that might, owing to criminal offence under the clause, give rise to judicial review. People might thus take the Ministry of Defence to court to prevent low flying, although that is essential, as my hon. Friend said.

Robert Key: The analysis of my right hon. Friend is wholly right.

Clause 83 introduces a strange little power: the power of a judge advocate to authorise entry and search. Clause 84 provides definitions for the purposes of clause 83. The matter is important. A point was raised during the consideration of the last Armed Forces Bill following the experience of journalists who were accused of undertaking various underhand acts in the course of their journalistic activities. I recall that there was a case involving a house that was entered and searched by Ministry of Defence police, although no one seemed to know whether they should have been there. I suspect that the measures are designed to tidy up the situation. It is all very strange.

Subsection (4) refers to the terms

" 'Items subject to legal privilege', 'excluded material' and 'special procedure material' ".

We are told that these definitions have the same effect as those in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. An example of "excluded material" includes

"personal records (such as medical records and journalist's materials) if held in confidence. An example of special procedure material is a journalist's material not held in confidence."

That has got the journalist both ways.

I seek clarification as I want to find out what is going on. I suspect that all sensible journalists will have gone off to bed or down to the pub, so they will not have heard me tonight. However, if they catch up with clause 84, they might have something to say.

I certainly support clause 99(6). It deals with limitations on custody without charge. I wonder whether the Prime Minister knew that the clause would be put into the Bill. There is a 48-hour maximum allowed in the context of limitations on custody without charge. Custody after charge is limited to eight days. That sounds pretty sensible to me and I am happy to support the provision.

I move on to clause 155(4)(d), which is the constitution of the court martial. This is fascinating. A chaplain cannot be a member of a court martial. Does that apply to other faiths—for example, to religious personnel, to Sikhs and to Muslims? We are delighted that the Minister has invited them to perform some of the roles that traditionally the Christian chaplains have carried out. I want to know why chaplains are specifically mentioned and whether that applies also to "chaplains" of other faiths.

The hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) made a passionate speech. I understood so much of what she was getting at. I would like to know one day what she thinks about clause 162, dealing with courts martial rules. An interesting argument arises. I have been to a few courts martial, sometimes to see constituents who have been involved in them. One of the problems is the mumbo-jumbo. For example, there were swords on tables pointing in particular directions and there was the question of whether headgear should be worn. All these things that have grown up over hundreds of years of military tradition are no more than mumbo-jumbo to ordinary people. I suspect that if some of the mumbo-jumbo was taken out of the process, the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood and her constituents would be reassured and their confidence would grow. Perhaps it is a similar argument to whether judges should wear full-bottomed wigs and so on.

Mrs. Humble: The families that I meet would welcome just being present and just being involved. They could probably cope with mumbo-jumbo. They are interested in getting answers and getting the truth.

Robert Key: No one could possibly disagree with that. I am sure that that is an issue that the hon. Lady will pursue whatever happens.

My penultimate question lies with clause 332, that is headed, "Composition and procedure of service complaints panels". Can an independent member—and I generally agree with this, although it has perhaps not gone far enough—be a naval chaplain? We do not know, and it might be thought that it does not matter. We do not know because so much will be introduced by regulation by the Secretary of State. We know that an Army chaplain cannot be an independent member of a complaints panel because that is provided for in the clause. However, clause 361 provides that naval chaplains, as explained in paragraph 849 of the explanatory notes, "have no rank". So if a naval chaplain has no rank, is he a member of the armed forces? So can he or can he not be an independent member of a complaints panel? This is a detail, but the sort of detail that will somewhere rear its head.

Mr. Kevan Jones : The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, but the Deepcut families and others are seeking true independence. These are people who have no connection with any of the armed forces.

Robert Key: Up to a point, Lord Copper. There are people in the armed forces who really value the presence of chaplains in the community. Young members of the forces perhaps tend to be vulnerable and think that they may be being bullied, or are being bullied, and they might turn to a chaplain. The role of chaplains is crucial—and I mean chaplains of various faiths. If a naval chaplain is allowed to be a member of an independent tribunal, that might be important for the person involved and as a principle or precedent for the role of chaplaincy in the armed forces.

Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): I am focusing on the hon. Gentleman's point. Surely clause 361 covers it. Does it not effectively extend to a naval chaplain the rank of officer? That is the way in which I read it. Ipso facto, he or she would have parity of treatment with an Army officer.

Robert Key: There are other circumstances where only certain sorts of non-commissioned officers can perform certain roles, as set out in the Bill. I do not know, and that is why I ask the question in all innocence. However, it is something that we will need to discuss in Committee.

Perhaps we need to look further afield if we are concerned about the true independence of the bodies that we are discussing. There is other experience. For example, there is the inspector general of the Australian defence force. It is an interesting example because his role is to

"identify systemic causes of injustice within the military system of justice covering",

not only

"Australian Defence Force discipline and defence inquiries."

We might look further at the complaint resolution agency in the Australian defence force, which has a particular role if the commanding officer

"declines to grant the redress sought or does not have the authority".

He can request that the redress of grievance

"is referred to the relevant service chief"

and then to the CRA. That is an important example. So is the defence force ombudsman of the Australian defence force. The Canadian military police have a complaints commission which really is independent, so perhaps we should consider its role.

Mr. Kevan Jones: I agree with the example that the hon. Gentleman gives of the Australian defence force. Does he agree that when there is a degree of independence from the chain of command that has not affected in any way the operational capabilities of the armed forces?

Robert Key: Of course the hon. Gentleman is right about operational capabilities, but it does give confidence when things go wrong.

My final question relates to clause 343, which is headed "Exemption from tolls and charges". It is an extraordinary provision. I speak as a former Minister who was responsible for roads. The clause exempts from tolls and charges bridges, congestion charges, toll roads, road pricing and so on a vehicle that

"belongs to any of Her Majesty's Forces".

Does that mean that Corporal Jones, going into Amesbury for a pint on Saturday night, will be exempt from paying a charge—not that there is a charge between Bullford barracks and Amesbury? If there were, what would be the position? I do not know because the provision is so broad. Neither the explanatory notes nor the terms of the clause help very much. We are told that no charge

"is payable in respect of a vehicle"

that is

"in use for the purposes of any of those forces."

There are many loopholes there.

We are talking about the best armed forces in the world. We are talking about a force that is brave and disciplined, based on hundreds of years of tradition and hundreds of years of keeping faith with the people of our islands and the peoples of the Commonwealth and beyond. It is all a matter of trust, and therefore it is a matter of justice. These things work both ways and that is what the Bill is all about. I warmly support it.