My Lords, I am very proud to have signed the two amendments tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. When I first looked at them, I thought that, given the scale of obscenity that this Bill perpetrates, maybe this is flotsam—
maybe this is just stating the obvious that for many years we have passed Acts of Parliament and sometimes aspects of domestic legislation have subsequently been found to be in breach of international law. As a matter of domestic law, a statute is not automatically invalid because it breaches international law without incorporation of the kind that we had with the EU and the Human Rights Act.
However, having spoken to the noble Viscount and thought again about the contemporary implications of provisions such as those in Clause 1(4) and Clause 1(6), I felt compelled to agree with him and to sign up to his amendment. We are sending a signal, initially to domestic civil servants, diplomats and Ministers, including in the context of the Ministerial Code, that we do not think our international obligations matter. That is a very significant cultural concern. It was perhaps the noble Viscount who made the point in relation to the Rwanda treaty earlier that we are saying, in the context of this Bill as a whole, that it is going to be alright, that Rwanda is not just going to be safe in the future but we can assume that is it safe now because of this treaty, this international binding agreement that Rwanda will of course respect because it is binding in international law—while simultaneously we are saying that international law does not affect the validity of UK law.
That is an extraordinary position, and an extraordinary position to put UK civil servants in—whether in the Border Force or the Home Office or whether they are diplomats anywhere in the world. Perhaps my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton will comment on this in a while as a member of the Constitution Committee. There are real tensions for Ministers and their duty to comply with the rule of law to put a provision such as this in primary legislation, notwithstanding the traditional point about the delicate relationship between the validity of domestic law and international law.
Then there is the bigger, existential question. At this particular moment in the world, in its state of insecurity, the United Kingdom’s position on Russia and Ukraine, events in the Middle East, Houthis and China is to say that international law matters. Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump has made some remarkable comments about his NATO allies. We are saying one thing, including with our arms, military support and rhetoric, about the importance of international law—“Do not breach it, because if you do, you will find us standing in your way”—while we pass a provision like this at the same time. I apologise to the noble Viscount for not seeing the vital importance of his amendments to begin with, but I certainly do now.
Week after week your Lordships’ House has noble Lords, including Ministers, talking about various parts of the world and the importance of the UK as a permanent member of the Security Council, and everything it will do and has attempted to do over many decades, including by military force, to uphold the international rules-based order— and then there is a dinner break or a change of personnel, and we have the Home Office back here saying that it will pass legislation to state that international law does not matter. That cannot continue. For those reasons, I am proud to support the amendments of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham.