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Terrorism: Rendition

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, for repeating the Statement made in the other place by the Foreign Secretary. I echo what my right honourable friend the shadow Foreign Secretary said, which was that, in coming to the House to inform us of this new information quickly after it had come to light, the Government acted very properly. As the Minister recognised, this information will cause widespread concern, owing to the categorical nature of the assurances given by the Government previously. The assurances given in another place by the then Foreign Secretary, the right honourable Mr Jack Straw, to the right honourable Sir Menzies Campbell and to my colleague the shadow Foreign Secretary, and by Mr Blair to the Intelligence and Security Committee, have proved to be false, albeit that they were given in good faith. More worrying still, this means that the specific assurances about the use of facilities at Diego Garcia given in a series of Answers to Questions from my noble friend Lord Ashcroft turned out to be false. In July last year, the Minister said: "““The US authorities have repeatedly given us assurances that no terrorist suspects have been, or are being, held on Diego Garcia, or at any time have passed in transit through Diego Garcia or its territorial waters or airspace””.—[Official Report, 18/7/07; col. WA 24.]" It is of course much better that this new information is revealed now than that it continues to be concealed, but it raises a number of serious questions, which I will list. How confident are the Government that further cases of this nature will not come to light? How exhaustive has the checking of records by the US now been? Can the Minister say any more about exactly how this omission occurred and whether the US has made any administrative changes to ensure that any other cases will now come to light? The noble Lord said that the Government will now compile a list of all previous flights that have alerted concerns and will pursue them with the US authorities. From this side of the House, I can say that we strongly approve. We hope that in compiling the list the Government will take account of the investigations undertaken by a number of outside organisations, such as Liberty, of possible cases of extraordinary rendition. These cases, of course, include not just flights transiting the Indian Ocean but also the use of UK domestic airspace. The rumours abound and need to be quieted. On these Benches, we trust that, whatever the outcome of their investigations, which we hope will be conducted as speedily as is consistent with thoroughness, the Government will report fully to the House. The investigation conducted last June by the Association of Chief Police Officers on behalf of the Government, which resulted in a nil return, was evidently not exhaustive. Will the Government also impress on the US Administration the importance of ensuring that all agencies of the US Government, not just the State Department, understand the importance of respecting the rules that the Minister has reiterated relating to UK law and practice? Can he assure the House that, if any further concerns are raised, he will pursue them immediately with the US on a systematic basis, rather than as a one-off exercise? In the light of what has happened, does the Minister expect procedures for the future to be tightened up or reinforced in any way? Again, this might involve changes in internal procedures in the US so that the British Government can be confident that the American Administration would indeed make a formal request, when appropriate, for use of our airspace or facilities. It would be good for any new arrangements to be reported to the House. The delay in releasing this information and the evident absence of a request in these cases are bound to undermine public trust in the arrangements that we have with the United States. Is it not important to do everything possible to strengthen the credibility of such arrangements for the future? I think that I reflect the feeling of this House when I say that extraordinary rendition is a subject that makes us feel very uneasy. If there is more to come out of the closet, it would be better for trust and confidence that it should emerge as the result of government investigation rather than in—if I may put it this way—more informal ways. Whatever the specifics of these two instances, their revelation inevitably focuses attention again on the wider issue of how rendition is used. As we on this side of the House have said in the past, extraordinary rendition raises the risk of losing control over the conditions under which a rendered suspect is then held—and possibly tortured—in a third country. This danger is not necessarily just history. Recent reports of secret prisons in Afghanistan in which terrorist suspects are held are grounds for concern. If such reports turned out to have substance, given our close support for the Afghan Government, there would be a risk to the good name of this country. Have the Government been able to substantiate or refute these allegations? The efforts of the US, our most important ally, to fight international terror are essential to the security not only of America but of Britain and many other nations. We agree entirely with the Government on that point. However, allegations that rendition has led to the torture of terrorist suspects have been used to undermine the moral standing of the United States and its allies. Indeed, such torture, if it has occurred, is fundamentally wrong. The Government take the view, which we share, that rendition leading to torture is unacceptable and have said that they would not approve of any instance of rendition that breached this country’s obligation under the UN Convention Against Torture. I have to say that the position of the US and all its allies would be strengthened if they were to adopt a definition of torture that corresponded more closely to international norms and if they adopted a higher threshold for rendition to third countries than satisfying themselves that they believed that the transferred suspect would not be tortured. As my right honourable friend the shadow Foreign Secretary asked in another place, is this not something that the Government should now advocate to America as its candid friend? Such differences of practice and definition are at the root of international concern and their satisfactory resolution would mean that, rather than permanent suspicion and occasional revelations, real trust—a most important commodity—might be restored for the future. Like, I am sure, others on all sides of the House, I look forward with great interest to the noble Lord’s responses to these important questions.