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Baha Mousa Inquiry

I am very grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for his response and for the way in which he phrased it. He is quite right that the report in no way reflects on the general behaviour of our armed forces; indeed, the whole reason why we are discussing this case is that it was a shocking deviation from the normal standards of behaviour that we have seen from our armed forces. He is correct that a number of individuals are still serving. We are looking at the evidence in detail—it is obviously a very large report—and as I have said, the chain of command is looking at how those individuals still in the armed forces might be treated, although I expect a number of suspensions today. The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of issues about the harsh approach to questioning and why we should adopt it. First, I should say to the House that the so-called harsh approach involves a short burst of shouting—defined as a short, sharp shock—to bring a captured person back to the realisation of their situation. It is not a violent technique, but it has produced information that has led to both civilian and military lives being saved. To deprive our armed forces of techniques that can make them safer and protect the population both here and abroad would be wrong. The right hon. Gentleman asked whether we needed a change to the law in respect of the five techniques that were outlawed by the Heath Government back in 1972. My understanding is that we do not—they are absolutely banned, as is currently made clear in training—but I will look to see whether doing that would reinforce the position and whether our legal experts believe it to be necessary. As for the right hon. Gentleman's point about exemptions from prosecution based on evidence, let me be clear that there was an exemption from prosecution based on an individual's own evidence, not an exemption from prosecution based on the evidence of others that came out in the inquiry. Both military and civilian prosecuting authorities will be looking closely at the evidence to see whether it is possible to bring more of those involved to justice.