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Terrorism: Rendition

My Lords, very important questions and issues have been raised in the two interventions that we have just heard. I think that we must accept that US assurances were given in good faith. They have proved false in the case of the omission of the two transfers through Diego Garcia in 2002, but I urge this House not to assume from this disappointing lapse that our most important ally is not to be trusted in a broader sense. The most compelling defence of the good intentions of the United States is that it volunteered this finding to us; there was no investigative journalist close to another exposé in the Washington Post, as far as we know. This was volunteered to us at the highest level on the ground that it was understood in Washington, as much as it would be here, that misleading Parliament is a major breach of parliamentary and democratic government, which must be corrected as quickly as possible. As the Statement made clear, there is as much remorse and concern on the part of Secretary Rice and her colleagues in Washington as there is on my part, on the part of the Foreign Secretary and on the part of this Government. As regards my own assurances in July, since 2003, and therefore after the Washington Post article, we have received regular assurances from the United States that Diego Garcia has not been used in any form for renditions. I will come back to the other steps that have been taken since then but, on the question of how confident we can be of the assurances that we have now received, I think that we must trust but verify. I accept the point that we cannot afford any longer to take them at face value—hence the Foreign Secretary’s decision to submit a list of suspicious flights, drawn from those identified by Liberty, Amnesty International and other inquiries. We will send as full a list as possible and make that list public, so that if people feel that flights have been omitted they can make their point. This will be a transparent process. We feel that we have every right to ask of the United States that it confirms to us that each and every one of these flights has not been used for rendition; it owes us that after what has happened. We recognise that this is not a problem in far-off oceans alone. We must include flights that may have passed through Prestwick or used UK airspace. Only through this process can we restore trust among the British public and the two Houses of Parliament in our ally’s good word and good faith. We hope that the United States will recognise that this exercise has become inevitable and vital in the light of the announcement today. Let me reconfirm to this House that, when it comes to extraordinary rendition, we oppose and would block any request to move people through our territories if there was any expectation that they would be tortured at the other end. We do not rule out rendition, but we have made it clear to the United States that we expect to be consulted, and our permission to be received, for any rendition, and that it will occur only when we feel that it is consistent with international norms and our own domestic legal requirements. Let me make it clear, to those who think that we are lying on our back and having our tummy tickled, that on a number of issues related to this we have been quite open about our disagreement with the United States. We believe that Guantanamo should be closed. Although we believe that there has been an improvement in the US justice arrangements for dealing with the Guantanamo cases, we still have our concerns about that justice system. We are opposed to torture and to activities that the US believes are not torture, such as waterboarding, but which we believe are torture. We are still more the bulldog than the poodle on this. After all, the concerns to which articles such as the one in 2002 gave rise led not only to questions in this House and another place but to actions by committees and the Government to review cases and to try to reach certainty that no such renditions had occurred. During those reviews, which ultimately took place in 2005-06, noble Lords will recall that of the four cases, which went back to 1998, two involved renditions but two involved individuals whom we had refused to be allowed to move through our airspace or territories for this purpose. Since 2003 for Diego Garcia and a little later for British airspace and territories worldwide, we have received regular assurances that no renditions are occurring and would occur only with our full agreement and consultation. The most recent such discussions took place in September 2007, so I insist to the House and to all noble Lords here that we have been fully vigilant in seeking to ensure that there is no secret trade in renditions.