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Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, my name is also on this amendment. The issues are clear and well known; I will not rehearse them again. We have cross-party and government agreement that transporting people to countries for the purposes of torture is both unacceptable and illegal. When we have raised these issues, as we did during the passage of the Civil Aviation Bill, the Government have taken the view that no new legislation is needed to ensure thatflights for the purpose of torture—extraordinary rendition—are kept out of the United Kingdom. We have indeed signed up to international conventions putting a duty on us to observe international law for flights landing in the UK or transiting our airspace. As the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, has pointed out, however, there are gaps, or perceived gaps, in the middle of this. We must ensure that those gaps do not exist. Despite all the strong statements from the Government about the unacceptability of extraordinary rendition, there remains widespread concern, which noble Lords have expressed both today and in the past, that some flights sponsored by the United States Central Intelligence Agency have used United Kingdom airfields and airspace while moving to locations that, we believe, have been used for the interrogation of suspects. We also now know that the United States Government have adopted a rather different interpretation of what constitutes ““torture”” from that adopted by the United Kingdom. It is therefore presumably possible that the United States authorities could give assurances that the flights were not for the purposes of interrogation under torture under a United States definition, where international and United Kingdom law might take another view. I hope that, this time, the Government will welcome this amendment as a way of clarifying the powers and responsibilities of all who may be concerned with suspicious flights. The amendment would also make the United Kingdom’s position on illegal rendition clear to the international community. Given that there are separate, particular difficulties with military airfields, I shall be tabling a parallel amendment as the Armed Forces Bill goes through your Lordships’ House. The two amendments together would give us a coherent approach to a serious problem, and I urge the Government to take the opportunity to adopt the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza.