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United Nations Convention Against Torture

My Lords, I, too, add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and to those associated with the work that she has done over many years. I mention in that context some of the finest NGOs in this country, bodies such as Amnesty International, the Medical Foundation and the refugee legal council, which are marvellous examples of the very best that Britain has to offer. There are three things terribly wrong with evidence based on torture. First, by the nature of the way in which it is received it is unreliable. We have very recent evidence—to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, referred—of the case of several British citizens who were profoundly tortured in Saudi Arabia and later admitted that they had agreed to all kinds of confessions of which they were not guilty for one moment. Secondly, it is a deeply humiliating and demeaning process. Anyone who considers the change in attitudes among the Muslim community to the UK and US coalition in Iraq, following the events at Abu Ghraib and Bagram, will understand how deeply there bites into a community a sense of anger and fury about torture. It adds strongly to a feeling that we are not living according to our own values. Thirdly, it seeps away at those very values. It begins to erode and destroy them. While I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, that at the present time we have a good record, it is also the case that in some areas that record is being vitiated by a growing ambiguity about what exactly is meant by subjecting people to torture. That brings me to my fourth point; namely, that we have taken great pride recently in the European Union, of which the United Kingdom is an active member, in gradually persuading Turkey to drop torture as a common weapon of criminal justice. The pride that we take in the way in which the European Union has steadily extended the culture and belief in human rights is vitiated every time that we ourselves become ambiguous and uncertain about where we actually stand. That brings me to my fifth point. A week ago the Home Secretary was in Washington discussing counter terrorism legislation. It is a matter of sadness to me that so often our Prime Minister identifies only with the Administration and not with some of the finest American traditions of belief in a rule of law and human rights. As many noble Lords will know, the Senate voted by 90 to nine, including 46 Republican senators, that there should in future be no demeaning or disgraceful system of punishment against anyone held in United States custody. That gives us a huge opportunity to redefine the limits and the guidelines of how we should behave. I turn finally to the two areas of profound ambiguity. The first of those concerns rendition, and I have to ask the Minister a direct question. Has the United Kingdom at any point taken part in the practice of rendition—under which one knowingly returns somebody to a country which is known to use torture as a method of state in order to receive their evidence, while being able to wash one’s hands, like Pilate, of any responsibility for what has happened? Sweden sent two returned detainees back to Egypt on assurances given by the Egyptian government. Those assurances were broken within a matter of months. The second area of ambiguity I want to refer to is comprehended partly by what the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, has already movingly said about deportations. It is simply appalling that we are now consistently sending people back knowingly to countries that practise torture and persecution—presumably for the reason of saving a bit of public expenditure—even when we could have rescued those people for a time from any fate of that kind. Then, in that association, there is the return of people to countries that promise or give diplomatic assurances that those people will not be tortured. Those diplomatic assurances are virtually worthless. That brings me to my final question. If Her Majesty’s Government accept diplomatic assurances from countries such as Jordan, Egypt or Saudi Arabia about the way in which returned detainees will be treated, may we ask what steps are being taken to ensure that those assurances are inspected, monitored and upheld? Has Her Majesty’s Government given any thought to the possibility of bodies such as the Red Cross or Red Crescent being involved in an independent inspection, or whether the promises are worth the paper that they are written on?