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Export Control (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2011

My Lords, nothing can be quite as stomach-churning as hearing one’s client being sentenced to death—as I have—and to know that the system of appeals will then follow. I was discussing only at lunchtime today one case where my client was condemned to death in Hong Kong. He won his appeal. There was a second trial and he was acquitted, but he ended up being executed in China by having a bullet put in the back of his neck. It is something which—old Liberal or new Liberal Democrat—I and my party have opposed for a very long time and I am delighted that this order has been brought forward. I hope that I shall not again have the experience that happened not so very long ago when I received a phone call from someone on death row in a Caribbean country telling me that they were building gallows outside his cell and that he was due to be executed on the following Monday—this being a Friday afternoon. Fortunately, on that occasion we were able to save him. The death penalty is a disgusting punishment. It is contrary to Article 2 of the European convention and contrary to all human rights conventions throughout the world, and I am pleased that this order takes it further.