§ 3.8 p.m.
§ LORD MORRIS rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are now prepared to implement the long promised and long overdue reforms in the office of the Judge Advocate-General; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion standing on the Paper in my name this afternoon may, I think, be said to have misfired in two respects. In the first place, it was no sooner in the hands of the printers, some weeks ago, than the Secretary of State for War rose in another place and undertook that a Committee would be appointed immediately to inquire into the matters which form the subject matter of my Motion. The second respect in which the Motion may be said to have misfired—if I may use that expression—is that the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has been kind enough to tell me that this afternoon he proposes in reply to me to announce to your Lordships the constitution of the Committee in question and its terms of reference. I shall listen with hated breath to the terms of reference and the constitution of the Committee.
§ Until this morning, I had intended not to take up your Lordships' time, except to withdraw my question, having obtained an answer in advance by putting the question down on the Paper. In all the circumstances, however, I think that perhaps the best course—if your Lordships 968 approve—will be for me to move for Papers. Then the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, can speak in reply, and I will very briefly and formally ask your Lordships for leave to withdraw—as I have done before, and even been refused. If I may detain your Lordships for just two or three minutes, I would make one or two observations, mainly in the nature of pious hopes concerning this Committee to be appointed and its functions. I am sure that your Lordships—some of you from bitter experience—will share my feeling and my view that sometimes those of us who move for Papers in this House labour under a considerable handicap in not knowing what is to be said by the Minister who replies for the Crown. For example, had I known some of the terms of reference of this Committee which is to be appointed and, even more important, its personnel, it may well be that some of the things I propose to say need not be said; or it may be that they will be conceived to be misguided. But on that, I must take my chance, because those of us who move for Papers do labour under this handicap. I have often thought that in the ten years in which I have had the honour to be a member of this House.
§ What I feel very strongly is that in this country—I do not care whether it is the Judge Advocate-General's office, or a lay Bench, or coroners, or the conduct of children's homes—it is frequently the case that no inquiry is made until there has been some particularly flagrant case which arouses public indignation to such a pitch that an inquiry is demanded and, in due course, granted. That is the point I would like to make this afternoon, and I think your Lordships would agree that had it not been for the case of the 250 paratroopers in Malaya, this matter would probably not have come to a head at all. One can dismiss the case of the paratroopers by simply quoting the leader of The Times which said that the Judge Advocate-General could not very well pass over responsibility for his share in the matter by saying that the papers had been submitted to him, and that therefore he had advised His Majesty's Government that the only proper course would be to quash the proceedings. That is not good enough.
§ The point is that there has been a long, grave and public trial of no fewer than 250 people, and it has been conducted in such a way that it has been necessary for 969 the authorities to advise the Crown to quash the proceedings. The result of that, as The Times leader to which I have referred pointed out, is either, on the one hand, that you have a body of men who should never have been convicted at all, convicted of the grave offence of mutiny, although innocent; or, alternatively, you have a body of men who should either have been shot, or who should be serving long terms of imprisonment, for a very grave offence going about free. The Judge Advocate-General cannot have it both ways. I do not know if it is true that his deputy in the Far East was called to the Bar at the beginning of this year. That is what I read in the Evening Standard. I have not had the time or the inclination to check that, but it is unfortunate that this should have got around.
§ If I may delve for a moment or two into slightly ancient history, the Oliver Committee was appointed (as your Lordships will remember) to look into these grave matters—they are certainly grave to soldiers, sailors and airmen—as long ago as 1940. In due course, the Committee reported and to the best of my knowledge and belief—and I. have the misfortune to have some inside knowledge of the Judge Advocate-General's office for three and a half years—nothing has been done in any shape or form to implement those reforms. Hence my Motion this afternoon. The specious excuse was put forward that there was a war on, and that they could not do that sort of thing. On the contrary, I should have thought that that was just the time to do it, when you have more soldiers, sailors and airmen than you have normally in peacetime. Yet nothing was done.
§ The Oliver Report made a number of recommendations, with most of which I whole-heartedly agree. I hope that many of them will be carried out and followed up by the new Committee which is to be appointed. With great respect to the learned Judge who presided over the Oliver Committee, however, I would say that in some respects that Committee did not go nearly far enough. It was just pawing at the thing; it did not tackle the problem at all. Yet in other respects it was much too far-reaching, and ranged over the whole history of courts-martial and whether trial by courts-martial was in itself a good thing. Of course, it is 970 a good thing. It has been accepted by the Services for a very long time as being good. What the Committee should have done, and what I suggest the new Committee should—and must do, is to probe very carefully into the interior running and internal organization of the Judge Advocate-General's office, a place in my humble opinion which is nothing more nor less than a nest of incompetence and intrigue. To my mind, that probe should be the main purpose of the Committee to be appointed in response to what is neither more nor less than public clamour. When the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, replies, I hope he will be able to give some sort of assurance that the gentlemen who are appointed not only by reason of their qulaifications but for their integrity and determination, will really probe into these matters, and will be able to tell Parliament and the public, or the Secretary of State for War, who appoints them, exactly what they have found, and exactly what they recommend.
§ It is idle to pretend that the present state of affairs in that office is satisfactory. For a long time prosecutors and judges, Army and Air Force have all been mixed up and reform is long over due. As I said, this is a long overdue reform, and I do hope that very speedily I shall be able to withdraw my Motion, confident that the terms of reference and the names of the Committee to be appointed by the Government will inspire in your Lordships, and in the public, confidence that this very important matter will be properly investigated. I have finished but for one final word. I did think it a little novel that the Judge Advocate-General himself was appointed as a member of the Oliver Committee. Surely, it was a little invidious to ask him to be a member, and a little curious that he should have aceepted the invitation. I should like to think, and I hope, that he will have no part in the deliberations of the new Committee.
THE MARQUESS OF READINGMay I interrupt? The noble Lord just said that the Judge Advocate-General was himself a member of the Oliver Committee. Is he not making a mistake, being a little out of date? Is it not the case that Sir Felix Cassel was not the judge Advocate-General at that time, but in fact had retired many years before?
LORD MORRISI think not. It may well be that Sir Henry MacGeagh was not really a member of the Committee.
LORD MORRISI think I am right in saying—surely my recollection is correct in saying—the paper ought to be available, anyway.
LORD MORRISYes, with permission, I entirely withdraw. That is incorrect. Sir Henry MacGeagh was not himself a member of the Committee, but, as the noble Marquess very rightly points out, his predecessor in office was. In this document, as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, knows better than I do, there are recommendations made, from some of which the then Judge Advocate-General, Sir Henry MacGeagh, dissented. I beg to move.
§ 3.21 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAMMy Lords, if the observations which fell from the noble Lord, Lord Morris, had fallen from any other member of your Lordships' House, they would, I think, have required a full and careful reply! I do not intend to say anything about them, except that they were inaccurate, ill-conditioned, and most unwelcome in this House.
I have a statement, I think, of some interest to the House to make this afternoon. The reforms to which the noble Lord's Motion refers are presumably the changes relating to the appointment, constitution, and functions of the Judge Advocate-General and his office, which were recommended by the Oliver Committee in their report on court-martial procedure in 1938. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, said it was in 1940. That was one of his smaller inaccuracies.
LORD PAKENHAM1938. The recommendations of that Committee were under consideration at the outbreak of war, in 1939, but the action to put into effect those recommendations, which were acceptable to the Government of the day, was suspended, as it was impossible 972 during the war to carry out any far-reaching reorganization of the office of the Judge Advocate-General. As my right honourable friend announced in another place, a fresh Committee is being set up, which will include in its deliberations a review, in the light of war experience, of the recommendations of the Oliver Committee. Until this new Committee has reported, and decisions have been reached upon its recommendations, I am sure the House would agree that it would be premature to alter the existing structure.
The composition of the Committee is as follows: Chairman, Hon. Mr. Justice Lewis, O.B.E. Members, Major-General the Right Hon. Viscount Bridgeman, C.B., D.S.O., M.C., A. R. Blackburn, Esq., M.P., T. N. Donovan, Esq., K.C., M.P., Sir Theobald Mathew K.B.E., M.C., Director of Public Prosecutions, J. C. Maude, Esq., K.C., M.P., Lieut.-Colonel R. A. F. Thorp, O.B.E., M.P., and also a retired senior R.A.F. officer. The terms of reference are these:
To bring under review, in the light of the experience gained in the late war and of the composition of the Army and the Royal Air Force, the recommendations of the Army and Air Force Courts-Martial Committee, 1938 (Cmd. 6200), with special reference to the question whether it is desirable to provide any, and if so what, form of appeal from the findings or sentences of courts-martial; to investigate the powers of courts-martial and of Commanding Officers to award punishment, and the nature and scale of such punishment; and to make recommendations upon these and kindred matters.I hope that that statement will be satisfactory to the House.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.