---

Guantanamo Bay

Perhaps I may be allowed a few concluding words. I thank all who have spoken, particularly the noble Lord, Lord West, for his thoughtful and thorough reply. There is a tendency, which I hope we have avoided, to adopt a tone of high moralistic disapproval of what has happened. We should remember, after all, that we have done something not too dissimilar in our own past, for example, in transporting people to Australia in conditions of terrible inhumanity. Only a few of them ever came back—they built Australia as a result, so perhaps some good came out of that. I trust that no one will feel tempted to repeat this particular experiment, which is very difficult to bring off for a democratic and law-abiding country. It is extraordinary that one should try to find a sort of terra nullius, where there is no legal jurisdiction and which you pinched or borrowed from somebody else called Cuba. That is repugnant to our own attitudes, and it is rather astonishing that our American friends should have done it. It is courageous of President Obama to have drawn it to an end. If we can help him bring it to a conclusion, I am sure that we are doing the right thing. I thank the Minister for replying so carefully to the points that we have raised. Sitting suspended.