Shooting Incident Policy

Sir Thayne Forbes has made just nine recommendations, and he acknowledges the progress that the Ministry has made since 2004 to improve all aspects of the prisoner-handling system—from policy and doctrine to unit-level instructions and procedures as well as training and oversight—and to ensure it complies with domestic and international law. I accept all nine recommendations in principle. I have commissioned urgent work on their practical implications—in particular, we will need to ensure that they will not prevent the armed forces from carrying out vital tasks—and I will announce to the House my detailed conclusions as soon as I can.

Recommendation 4. This calls for promulgation of an achievable and human rights-compliant shooting incident policy. The requirements under the Armed Forces Act 2006 to report serious incidents to the Service Police are clear. Shooting incident policies are theatre-specific and are written to reflect the security situation and the role in which the Armed Forces are employed. On enduring operations they evolve over time.  Any change to our existing policy must take those realities into account, must avoid unreasonable constraints to operational effectiveness, and must be practically achievable. In accordance with the recommendation, the MoD is investigating the feasibility of an overarching Shooting Incident Policy that would be compliant with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, regardless of what the demands of Article 2 might be as a matter of law in a given situation.