My Lords, I should say immediately that I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and I supported the amendments that have just gone through this House. But in fact my position is quite a clear one; I do not approve of the closed material procedure at all. I was prepared to make concessions and vote for the amendments that have just gone through, but really I do not think that it is needed at all.
This country is just emerging from a very dark period in our history in which there is compelling evidence that in the aftermath of 9/11 our intelligence services departed from the standards that we would expect of them and became too closely connected with those who torture. There has been evidence of involvement in rendition, and allegations of being too closely proximate to places where torture has been taking place, providing questions and information to interrogators who have used horrifying procedures to extract answers from people who are detained. Unfortunately, our desire to be a supportive ally to the United States of America often led us into activities that are unacceptable but should not have been covered up by secrecy—and nor should they be in future. It is important for the good standing of our country in the world, but also for the standards that we normally set ourselves, that that history is placed before the public, and that we know that it happened so that it cannot happen again.
I accept that there are matters of national security that should not be in the public domain, but national security cannot be used to cover up conduct that is criminal and which debases our standing in the world. Over many years of practice in the courts I have done many cases involving national security, and I am sensitive to the issues involved. The prohibition of torture is one of the few absolutes in the law of human rights. The United States of America forgot that in the Bush era, despite being a signatory to the conventions, as indeed we are. It insisted on calling its methods, “enhanced interrogation procedures”—anything more than waterboarding being outsourced to other countries that were not quite as squeamish.
I support the amendment because the flag of national security is too often a flag of convenience to prevent shameful or embarrassing conduct being exposed. We have well established procedures in our courts and our system to deal with issues that need the cover of secrecy. I have been involved in many cases where PII has been used, where witnesses appear behind screens, or where there is non-disclosure of names or anything that could be identifying material. There are methods and ways in which material that is sensitive to national security can be received without putting our security in jeopardy or, indeed, not received at all.
Let us be clear. This piece of legislation arises at the behest of the United States of America, and we should not behave like a lapdog. One of the reasons is because the USA is also unhappy about being revealed as having participated in many of these shameful activities. However, this legislation has arisen in particular because of the exposure of the terrible facts in the case of Binyam Mohamed. I keep hearing people saying, “But of course these were people suspected of terrorism”. I heard the young American colonel who came to this country who did not choose to represent Binyam Mohamed, but eventually, when it was said that there had to be representation of people in Guantanamo Bay, she acted for him. I heard her presenting to a gathering of lawyers evidence of the extent to which he had been tortured and rendered from Pakistan to north Africa, and eventually to Guantanamo, where his genitals were subjected to insult and attack, and where he was tortured. There is no doubt that he experienced terrible events. It does not matter whether you are talking about someone who is a suspect of terrorism or not; such conduct is unacceptable.
Torture is one of the most egregious of crimes and we are trying to stamp it out in the world. That will be done only if we set ourselves the highest standards, take the lead in doing that and do not succumb to the entreaties of even our closest ally to enter into court processes that might make it more difficult for people who want redress for any role that we might have played in their torture. When they seek redress and come to our courts, they should be able to expect not to be spurned by the courts, which is, in the end, what this piece of legislation will allow to happen.
I remind this House that not long ago in Libya, papers were found after the events in that country and its liberation from Gaddafi, which disclosed that we, Britain, had played a part in the rendition of a man who now sits in government in Libya—a man who was an opponent of Gaddafi. However, at the request of Gaddafi, we had participated in his rendition back to that country.
I want also to raise another issue that is of profound moral and ethical importance to us if we are to care about such issues—the use of drones. There is evidence that our intelligence services are providing locational intelligence to the Americans in order that a CIA operative, sitting in Oregon, can direct a drone even into Pakistan, and sometimes find that large numbers of civilians, including children, are at the receiving end of the bombing. It may have the success of taking out people considered to be enemies, but it has the horrifying additional outcome of killing innocent people.
The closed material procedure will make it impossible for us to reach into these dark parts of conduct that may be taking place in our name. It would be shameful to allow this to go through our House without calling it to account. It is not a piece of legislation to which we should put our names. I regret that the Labour Benches are empty. Perhaps it is because a lot of this might have happened on a Labour Government’s watch.
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