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Guantanamo Bay

On hearing President Obama’s decision to close the interrogation centre at Guantanamo, I was pleased that that courageous and difficult step had been taken. It is of course against the principles of our own legal system for a citizen to be indefinitely imprisoned without charge. It is specifically contrary to the provisions of our own Magna Carta. The President's action was thus in accordance with our own precedents and tradition and his courage in making a clean break with the previous American practice was to be welcomed. I sense that that was also the reaction of many of our fellow citizens. At the same time, I can see that the consequences might lead to some awkward decisions for our own authorities. It would only be just for a British citizen released from Guantanamo who wished to return here to be entitled to do so, accompanied, if he wished, by his wife and children. But other cases might be less straightforward. What if a released prisoner not of British nationality, who has previously had the right to reside here, which right had expired meanwhile, wished to return as a resident? I believe that there has been a case of that kind. We could no doubt ask the US authorities what they knew about this person’s political activities in the United States and why he had been imprisoned. I have little doubt that they would try to help, but while we should not be unsympathetic to his request, we could not be said to be under a particular obligation to him. Then there are other applicants who may have had no previous close connection with our country, but who may have concluded that this would be a desirable place for them to live for an indefinite period. Here, too, we should feel under no obligation to admit such persons but we could ask the American authorities for an account of the reasons leading to their imprisonment. My interest has been that an early debate would enable us to be enlightened about the attitude of Her Majesty's Government to such requests, which could be of considerable interest to public opinion in this country generally. To my knowledge, no such statement has yet been made. Some several weeks have elapsed since I gave notice of this Question for Short Debate, since it seemed rather a large topic for an ordinary parliamentary Question, which means that it has lost a certain amount of its topicality. Meanwhile, there has been a fresh development. According to an article in the Guardian on 16 June, an important meeting was held by European Union Governments in Brussels the previous day to discuss these issues. The newspaper stated that the meeting cleared the hurdles for up to 50 Guantanamo returnees to be accommodated in EU countries. It also stated that the United States had agreed to pay the European countries that accommodated them. Each country would decide whether to take in the former detainees, with a deadline in January next. According to the newspaper, officials were said to remark that they were, ""not far away from a breakthrough"." Meanwhile, I read some breaking news in another newspaper article recently that the United States Government had reached an agreement with Bermuda for four prisoners from Guantanamo to be transferred to Bermuda financed by a payment from the United States Government. Were our own Government asked about that? Did the US Government consult us before making an agreement with a British territory, and if not, why not? It would be appropriate for the Government to make a formal statement about their attitude to these developments, which are of considerable interest and some concern to our citizens. Could they also cover the awkward fact that, whatever we decide ourselves, other European Union states may be inclined to accept these people who, having established themselves within the EU, would then be free to travel to this country as EU residents? That might have awkward and unforeseen circumstances. My task today was not to criticise the Government but suggest to them that this is a subject of some considerable importance to the nation as a whole, and it would be helpful if, at an early date, a full authoritative statement could be made, possibly in Parliament, for the information of the country at large.