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Civil Aviation Bill

moved Amendment No. 22:"After Clause 11, insert the following new clause—" ““AIRCRAFT INVOLVED IN ACTS OF RENDITION (1)   If the Secretary of State is aware of intelligence that any aircraft entering British airspace is being, has been or may be involved in an act of unlawful rendition then he may require that aircraft to land at a designated suitable airport. (2)   If any plane is required to land in accordance with subsection (1) a responsible person shall as soon as practicable— (a)   enter the aircraft; or (b)   arrange for a police constable or authorised officer of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to enter the aircraft. (3)   If the Secretary of State or other responsible person is aware of intelligence that an aircraft using airport facilities in the United Kingdom is being, has been or may be involved in an act of unlawful rendition then a responsible person may make arrangements to— (a)   enter the aircraft; or (b)   arrange for a police constable or an authorised officer of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to enter the aircraft. (4)   A person who enters an aircraft under subsection (2) or (3) shall endeavour to ascertain— (a)   whether the aircraft is being or has been used for an act of unlawful rendition; (b)   whether a criminal offence has been committed; (c)   whether allowing the aircraft to continue could place the United Kingdom in breach of its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights; and for these purposes the person may search the aircraft. (5)   In order to comply with a power under subsection (4) any item may be removed from the aircraft. (6)   For the purposes of this section— ““an act of unlawful rendition”” is an act involving the transportation of a person to a territory where international human rights standards, in particular protections against torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, are not observed, such transportation not being in accordance with formal lawful extradition or deportation procedures; ““a responsible person”” means— (a)   the chief officer of police of a police force maintained for a police area in England and Wales; (b)   the chief constable of a police force maintained under the Police (Scotland) Act 1967 (c. 77); (c)   the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland; (d)   one of the Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am fully aware that we are at Report stage and I will therefore be as brief and to the point as I can. However, this is an important matter: the amendment aims to provide a simple but effective mechanism to investigate aircraft suspected of being involved in the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition. There is no suggestion that the UK Government are practising, or have ever practised, extraordinary rendition in any form—of course not. But up until Monday of this week, there was circumstantial evidence to suggest that the UK may have facilitated this practice by allowing refuelling stops by aircraft used by the US Government or private aircraft owned or leased by the CIA for the purpose of transporting detainees to a third country for interrogation. Yesterday, the Armed Forces Minister, Adam Ingram, disclosed that aircraft suspected of being used by the CIA had in fact landed at British military airfields. When this issue was first raised in Grand Committee last December, it was judged to be both inappropriate and inapplicable in large part due to the terms of the Chicago convention. However, that is now acknowledged by the Government to be irrelevant, and I quote the answer given by the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, in response to a Written Question from the noble Lord, Lord Lester:"““Nothing in the Chicago convention restricts the right of the appropriate authorities under UK law to board an aircraft for the purpose of arresting a person who they have reasonable grounds to suspect has committed or is committing an offence””.—[Official Report, 1/3/06; col. WA 62.]" In fact, research carried out by experts in international transport law shows that the Chicago convention and the later Tokyo convention impose a positive duty on the part of government to investigate. The Tokyo Convention, for example, allows a state to interfere with an aircraft in flight if,"““the exercise of jurisdiction is necessary to ensure the observance of any obligation of such State under a multilateral international agreement””." We are dealing here with illegal seizing, transport and possible—even likely—torture of individuals. This practice infringes just about every human rights treaty on the books, including the torture convention, which, as is well recognised, carries an absolute prohibition of torture, no matter what the circumstances. The facts surrounding this practice of extraordinary rendition are hard to come by. However, such is the concern, uncertainty and suspicion that it has occurred and continues to occur, possibly on a regular basis, that no fewer than 10 European member states have set up official inquiries into US transport and CIA flights into their respective countries. The Secretary-General of the Council of Europe reported last week on a year-long study into extraordinary rendition, in which he said:"““It would appear that most of Europe is a happy hunting ground for foreign security services””." He goes on to say that,"““hardly any country . . . has any legal provision to ensure effective oversight of the activities of foreign security services on their territory””." I quote again:"““European skies appear to be excessively open . . . very few countries seem to have adopted an adequate and effective way to monitor who and what is transiting their airports and airspace. Indeed, no member state appears to have established any kind of procedure in order to assess whether civil aircraft are used for purposes which would be incompatible with internationally recognised human rights standards. This is alarming because the explanations provided on the specific point of controls over aircraft allegedly used for rendition show that existing procedures do not provide adequate safeguards against abuse””." The former Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, is quoted in a report by the Swiss Senator Mr Dick Marty as accusing a number of European countries of hypocrisy in that, while benefiting from the intelligence that the Americans gather, they publicly distance themselves from the methods by which it is obtained. The UK National Air Traffic Services confirmed on 22 February of this year that in the past five years two aircraft believed to have been chartered by the CIA, as identified by their registration numbers, had passed through the UK on more than 200 occasions. The Government, in denying any awareness of extraordinary rendition, have relied heavily on a firm statement made by the current Secretary of State, Miss Condoleezza Rice, just prior to her departure for a European tour last December, in which her very carefully crafted words denied any involvement in extraordinary rendition. However, we have to be very cautious here. The US has derogated from the ““cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”” clause of the UN torture convention. This allows it to interpret such acts as falling short of torture. Moreover, the wording of the statement includes the sentence,"““the US has not and will not transport anyone to a country where the United States believes that the person will be tortured””." It could well be argued that what the US believes does not necessarily conform to the beliefs of the international human rights community. I am as interested in preventing terrorist acts as anyone else. I do not wish to appear a harridan, but the practice of extraordinary rendition is monstrous and monstrously illegal. The amendment before your Lordships, for which I gratefully acknowledge the painstaking work of Liberty, Redress, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and several legal experts, is straightforward and highly relevant to the Civil Aviation Bill in that it deals with a mechanism to ensure that aircraft flights conform with the statutory obligations of the Government. It simply empowers the appropriate authorities to require aircraft suspected of being involved in extraordinary rendition to land and to be searched. I suggest that this is the only way in which dangerous rumours and suspicions can be put to rest and any future acts of extraordinary rendition via the UK can be pre-empted. I beg to move.