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Armed Forces Bill

My Lords, I spoke at some length in Committee about what I saw as the legal position on this matter, and I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garden, for his remarks about that this afternoon. I shall simply summarise to your Lordships once more what I believe that legal position to be. If a commanding officer on station apprehends that a foreign aircraft that has landed at his aerodrome contains someone who is on their way to being tortured, he has a binding legal duty to inspect the contents of that plane irrespective of any superior orders in the chain of command. If he does not do that, he will be complicit in the international crime of torture and personally liable to be prosecuted under international criminal law. Therefore, whatever amendment we make to the Bill on this matter will, strictly speaking, be irrelevant because the legal duty is there. It is inescapable for the Government. Since Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Garden, has been thinking about how he can deal with this matter, and I am perfectly content with the amendment that he has come up with now. It seems in no way to cut across my analysis of the legal position. While I do not think it is necessary, it is in every other respect compliant, which is why I have put my name to it.