Clause 118.—(APPLICATION TO CERTAIN CIVILIANS.) (Hansard, 22 July 1957)

§ The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Christopher Soames)

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

As the House is aware, the purpose of Clause 118 is to enable civilians who are accompanying or employed by the Armed Forces overseas to benefit from the N.A.T.O. Status of Forces Agreement and similar agreements which authorise the tribunals of the visiting force to try its own people in the host State. There is no difficulty about this so far as the members of the Armed Forces are concerned, because they are subject to Service law and Service discipline wherever they may be, but special steps have to be taken for 167 civilians because, unless they are made subject to Service law to at least this extent, no United Kingdom tribunal can deal with them for offences committed overseas.

As passed by this House, the Clause made civilians subject to the Naval Discipline Act to the extent which it is required outside Her Majesty's Dominions. We have since found that that is not quite sufficient, because Canada is a member of N.A.T.O. and we have similar agreements with some other Commonwealth countries. It is therefore now proposed that the clause on this particular form of jurisdiction which before said,"Outside Her Majesty's Dominions", should now read: outside the United Kingdom or any colony. The Army and Air Force Acts both authorised this.