(1)If provision is made by the Queen's Regulations for the Army for creating the ranks of lance-corporal and lance-bombardier, the following provisions of this section shall come into operation on the day on which the provision so made takes effect.
(2)The Army Act, 1955, shall be amended as follows:—
(a)after subsection (3) of section seventy-eight there shall be inserted the following subsection:—
“(3A)Where the accused is a lance-corporal or lance-bombardier, and the commanding officer finds him guilty, the commanding officer may, if he awards no other punishment or no other punishment except stoppages, order the accused to be reduced to the ranks.”;
(b)in subsection (6) of section seventy-eight, for the words " the three last foregoing subsections" there shall be substituted the words " the four last foregoing subsections " ;
(c)in subsection (1) of section two hundred and one (restrictions on reduction in rank of warrant officers and non-commissioned officers), after the words " noncommissioned officer of the regular forces " there shall be inserted the words " (other than a lance-corporal or lance-bombardier) ";
(d)in subsection (1) of section two hundred and twenty-five (general provisions as to interpretation), in the definition of " acting rank ", the words " and references to acting non-commissioned officers shall be construed as including references to lance-corporals and lance-bombardiers " shall be omitted.
(3)After paragraph 3 of the Sixth Schedule to the Air Force Act, 1955 (application of Act to attached members of naval and military forces), there shall be inserted the following paragraph:—
“3ANotwithstanding anything in section two hundred and one of this Act, a commanding officer dealing summarily, under section seventy-eight of this Act, with a lance-corporal or lance-bombardier subject to air-force law as aforesaid may, if he finds him guilty and awards no other punishment or no other punishment except stoppages, order him to be reduced to the ranks”.
(1)The enactments specified in the first column of the Second Schedule to this Act shall have effect subject to the amendments respectively specified in relation thereto in the second column of that Schedule, being minor amendments or amendments consequential on the foregoing provisions of this Act.
(2)The transitional provisions set out in the Third Schedule to this Act shall have effect in connection with the amendments made by this Act in Part II (discipline and trial and punishment of offences) of the Army Act, 1955, and of the Air Force Act, 1955.