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Armed Forces: Detention

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reminder about Northern Ireland, where, because of the length of the campaign, we ended up with a proper and accurate system of recording it. There is no question that, in Iraq, we ended up with multiple records and double counting. We have constructed an historically accurate database; the figures from that are in the Statement, and I will not repeat them. As to whether I believe that there are there further corrections to come out, the answer is no. I have been briefed on the thoroughness of this project and believe that the answers that have come out are right. However, I stress that this Statement is one of contrition; we have apologised to Parliament for not keeping the records accurately and have promised to change the procedures to ensure that they are, in future, accurate. The procedures, on which I have been briefed, are clearly different. We will have an accurate picture of any future detainees. In a sense, the noble Lord has asked me to prove a negative. There is nothing to suggest that any events will be revealed from future data, whereby individuals and the Armed Forces will be at some risk, because there is nothing to suggest that the data have any holes in them when it comes to transferring individuals to other custody. However, regarding how individuals were treated when they were apprehended and detained by the United Kingdom or, when under our various Memorandums of Understanding, handed over to the US, two individuals were treated, in a sense, outside of the terms of that Memorandum of Understanding. That is regrettable—it was an error and the Statement apologises for it.