asked the Secretary of State for War if he will consider the setting up of a committee of inquiry into the functioning of courts martial in this country.

I am not quite sure what my hon. Friend has in mind. I do not think the functioning of courts-martial is the subject of public anxieties which call for a committee of inquiry. The whole code of military law and procedure, including the functioning of courts-martial, will however require to be reviewed in the light of war experience, and it may well be desirable to appoint a committee for this purpose a little later on, when the Judge Advocate General and other staffs intimately concerned are less heavily pressed with current business.